Toto

WRONG. Only a small group of discredited nutcases think that the Holocaust was a hoax.

Johnny Skeptic

Do you by any chance have anything to say that is pertinent to this thread?

You live in a fantasy world. I reasonably proved that the God of the Bible does not exist in my post #53 in a thread at http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=235501 at this forum.

arnoldo

Ok.

Champion

You are right and I have already said that there is not a consensus around secular historians. I think it's fair to say that there is about a 50/50 split. My first post was wrong in stating otherwise.

This is something we will never know for certain. It all boils down to how you interpret Tacitus, first clement, and the few other sources we have on the period.

I'm not saying their opinions count for more. I'm saying that their opinions should count for something.

Well if this was your original intent than you should have said so in the first place. At any rate, I brought up 1 Clement again because I'm interested on how you interpret the passages on Peter, Paul, and the large amounts of murdered people.

Excluding the argument that the Tacitus passage is a forgery I think that arguments against this passage referring to Christians are rather silly.

arnoldo

Agreed. I think the logic for this argument is the following.

1. Yeshua is a myth
2. Paul is a myth
3. Therefore there were no early christians.
4. Furthermore since there were no early christians there was no early persecution of these ficticious christians.
5. Christianity is a myth which was invented in the 5th century.

Toto

This is a strawman argument that you made up.

There are people who believe that Jesus existed, but that stories of early Christian persecution are wildly exaggerated.

There are people who believe that Jesus never existed, but that Paul existed, early Christians existed, but still that stories of early Christian persecution are wildly exaggerated.

No one believes that Christianity was invented in the 5th century.

Johnny Skeptic

You will have to conduct months or years of reseach to back up that claim. I believe that the split is not anywhere near 50/50, but since you are the claimant, I do not have to provide a consensus of secular historians who agree with me. f the split is 50/50, then neither side should make an issue out of Nero persecuting lots of Christians.

If you do not have any credible evidence that Tactitus and Clement said that most of the Christians who Nero killed died as martyrs, you lose.

Does that include their claim that Jesus rose from the dead? Since Christian historians are already wrong regarding many historical claims, their judgment is supect unless a consensus of secular historians agrees with them.

But I did in the first paragraph of my opening post. I said:

Obviously, the issue in that paragraph is martyrs, not numbers of martyrs. I also made an issue out of numbers in my opening post, but obviously not only numbers. You should have paid better attention to my opening post.

I am only interested in whether or not Clement provided credible evidence that the majority of Christians who Nero killed died as martyrs. Even if I was interested in what Clement said about Nero persecuting large numbers of Christians, since I am not a historian, I prefer to defer to the judgments of a consensus of secular historians whatever their judgments are.

Champion

50/50 isn't a consensus. You have already adequately shown that there isn't a consensus. I'm willing to do more research in my spare time.

People can argue for whichever historical opinion they want, they should be sure to mention the fact that other intelligent people disagree.

Clement is fairly clear on the topic and I haven't read anything questioning 1 Clement's authenticity or dating between 80-140. We've already been over what Tacitus' says.

They back that claim up with religious arguments. I'd advise you to take those arguments with a grain of salt. When they write books on history they back it up with historical arguments.

A good many secular historians agree with them, surely that shows that their opinion in this area isn't just some religious fantasy that follows purely ideological lines.

schilling.klaus

all humbug, Clement is nowhere near clear, and the whole thing is a fraudulent forgery of the charlataneous sort. It is late secons century and only concerned with Catholic community discipline and supremacy of the Roman church.

secular fantasies are even a trifle worse than religious ones

Klaus Schilling

Huon

This quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia, which cannot be believed blindly, when they say that the letter of Clement is genuine.

And what is the quote of this letter which speaks of Christians who died as martyrs because Nero killed them ?