Minimalist

Undisputed by whom? Desperate christians who grasp at any straw imaginable to provide a lifeline for their godboy?

Solitary Man

Undisputed by most mainstream scholars, even those who are not Christians.

mountainman

Most people accept that we have evidence for the
belief (and non-belief) in Jesus Christ with the
explosion of the ancient historical evidence with
effect from the fourth century. There are of course,
the exceptions like Fomenko et al.

The Pre-Nicene Layer is extremely rich in conjectures
and very poor in terms of anything else, specifically
evidence of any form other than Eusebian.


There have been intrusions into Biblical (New Testament)
studies from a number of fields in the last century. Perhaps
these might be termed "Non-Eusebian":

1) Radio carbon dating: C14 analysis and dating the
gJudas and the gThomas, reports from the catacombs
of St. Callixtus, and other sites , etc

2) Archaeological Finds:
a) DSS (no relevance yet attributable to NT studies)
b) Nag Hammadi Codices: mix of non-christian and christian?
c) gJudas
d) Syriac finds and tranlsations not available before c.1900
e) Other excavations: Dura Europa, Meggido, etc
f) paprii
g) epigraphy
h) art, mural, grafitti, etc


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

mountainman

Here is a list of scholars who have not only disputed
the reference, but have classified the TF as completely
inauthentic

Lardner,
Harnack,
Schurer,
Gordon Stein.
Author of CMU,
Arthur Drews,
David Taylor,
Wells, JM
Bishop Warburton "a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too",
Remsburg,
Rev. Dr. Giles,
Rev. S. Baring-Gould,
Cannon Farrar,
Theodor Keim,
Rev. Dr. Hooykaas ,
Dr. Alexander Campbell,
Dr. Chalmers,
Lee Strobel (NOTE: See comments),
Charles Templeton,
Freke and Gandy,
Earl Doherty,
Marshall Gauvin ("[the TF] .. did not exist." ),
Edwin Johnson,
Jakob Burckhardt ??
Jay Raskin
Joseph Wheless, Forgery in Christianity

Solitary Man ignores these authors.
To him, they have not lifted their pens.

Best wishes,



Pete Brown

aa5874

"Undisputed by most" only means disputed. And it is imperative for Christians to think Christ existed as a god, a man or both, hence the word Christian.

Like a juror, I have no consideration for the "most Christian scholars", only the "most evidence". And the "most evidence" is against the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth.

Ben C Smith

Here is the original statement:

I believe it is clear that Solitary Man was referring to the James reference when he called the passage mostly undisputed. Not the TF, which he called disputed.

Ben.

Solitary Man

There's a reason I have certain people on ignore. If they cannot even bother themselves to correctly read a simple paragraph, oh what horrible things they must do to ancient works!

mountainman

The list of scholars cited reject both the major
reference in Josephus (the TF) and the minor
James reference as "later interpolations".

To these authors, Josephus does not mention
Jesus Christ at all.


Best wishes


Pete Brown

jeffevnz

There's no strong evidence Jesus existed as a historical person, but I tend to think he did anyway, because of the so-called "criterion of embarassment."

In case you're not familiar with it, the argument goes like this. If the Gospels were fabricated, then (whether they're mythic or fictional) they would likely be composed by people who want you to convert or adhere to Christianity. Well, the problem with that is that the Gospels contain a number of details that cast doubt on Christian beliefs:

- Obvious doubts about Jesus's paternal lineage.
- People from his home town thinking he was full of it.
- He seems to second-guess himself on the cross: "Father, why have you forsaken me?"
- He famously prophesizes his return within the lifetimes of some listening to him; a prophecy that has presumably failed.

It's a little indirect, but if you try to imagine Christian evangelists inventing those parts, it strikes you as weird.


In addition to that one, I also think Jesus's character comes across as a very life-like cult leader... I also think that the existence of Christianity itself, and the purported history in the Gospels, while they may be weak evidence, are still evidence. If we had nothing to go on but the Gospels, my feeling is that the simplest theory to account for them is that there really was some guy named Jesus at the root of them.

Huon

An ordinary person of these times could not read, and had to believe the arguments of the christian preachers (and later, christian priests). It seems also that a preacher used only one gospel. And still now, the educated Christians are not very impressed by the contradictions which are inside the 4 authorized gospels and the rest of the canonical literature. It seems to me (who never was a christian) that the christians expect salvation, and that's all.