andrewcriddle

The Trojan_Horse is presumably entirely non-historical, but it was not invented by Virgil. The earliest mention is in book 4 of the Odyssey.

Andrew Criddle

Duvduv

Please see my last posting. 7036776.

Toto

The mummy is direct physical evidence that the person lived, and had enough status in society to have his corpse mummified.

There are many historical figures who have left this sort of physical evidence, or other evidence that is persuasive.

Moses, on the other hand, left no physical evidence, and is the main character in a story that appears to be purely fictional. This refutes your claim that "others besides Moses are not more or less verifiable than he was."

Duvduv

Did Socrates or Plato leave physical evidence? How do you know the mummy was really Raamses?
Did Mohammed leave physical evidence? For all you know they are fictional.
Irenaeus, Marcion and Tertullian left no physical evidence, nor did Julius Cesaer.

Diogenes the Cynic

You're setting up a bit of a strawman by asking only about physical evidence. There are other kind of evidence which are just as reliable. For instance, corroboration from multiple writers, or writing from the subject himself. We have, for instance, multiple contemporary witnesses for Socrates. There is also such a thing as archaeological evidence, which exists in abundance for Julius Caesar. Inscriptions, coins, battle sites, etc. None of this kind of stuff exists for Moses. Moreover, Moses does not just suffer from absence of evidence, but from actual evidence of absence. The Israelites were never enslaved in Israel. There never was an Exodus. Since the figure of Moses cannot be meaningfully defined without those events, he couldn't have existed at all.

Duvduv

So because a few coins exist for Julius Cesaer that means ipso facto that Moses didn't exist despite the fact there is no evidence for the existence of Plato, Socrates, Mohammed, Hussein, Ali or the other cases I mentioned.
How do you know "contemporary witnesses" are even valid? In any case this is rather haphazard in general.

stephan huller

The certainly know duvduv lives is because I get aggravated every time I look at the threads on this forum. Have we found someone more annoying than mountainman? At least Pete posits something. This is just endless nihilistic babbling. Why not close the book and say that none of this every happened and pursue cooking or baking or something which you can touch and feel with certainty? Please go away.

Duvduv

Interesting that my postings get under your skin. Who died and left you king?

la70119

I have a "Paul," and a "James," "Peter," "Kefas," and "John" who are liable to disagree with you.

Then show me in the writings of the church fathers where the Evangelists and Paul are quoted prolifically. Justin Martyr quotes the OT prolifically, that is true, but the Gospels and the letters of Paul? Only "The Memoirs of the Apostles" and "The Memoirs of Peter" AFAIK.

And instead of Paul the super apostle, Justin Martyr has twelve illiterate apostles (none of them Paul) go forth from J'lem and preach the gospel to every nation.

Then why these?

I Samuel 15:22

Hosea 6:6

Matthew 9:13

Matthew 12:7

Mark 12:33

Hebrews 10:8

Strange demands of a God, whose message was all about "blood." Seems blood is not that important. (I suppose when you factor in the kill-off of an entire biosphere in a great flood, multiple exterminations and ethnic cleansings of the 'unrighteous,' even those normal people would consider totally innocent, culminating in the the brutal murder of a Child of a Ghost on an execution utility pole, this diety is all about mixed messages.)

The Jews, particularly the Orthodox, would consider Christianity one of those many cults that sprung up over those 2,000 years and whose New Testament relies on the authority of the Tanakh, despite the fact that Christianity uses the Septuagint version that Jews don't even recognize.

Distinctive teaching? Yeah, "Christ crucified" using verbiage guaranteed to create a scandle amongst the Jews, laughter and mockery amongst the Greeks and offence amongst the Romans. And he said the Torah was completely done away with, yet people still had to "keep" it, and yet taught it doesn't matter what you do, it's all predestined (Calvinism).

Read Paul's epistles and Acts, then. There appears to be an undercurrent of disagreement between paul and the "Pillars of the Church" over his teaching. And when Orthodox (and Christian?) Jews have Paul arrested in Acts 21, saying his "unique teaching" was against the Torah, the People of Irsael and the Temple, what happened to James? Nowhere to be found. It is as if the charges were true. If there was less than a cigarette paper between them, James would certainly have come to Paul's defense.

la70119

Exactly. And when they couldn't extrapolate from the LXX, it seems they had the biography of Julius Caesar and the myths of Prometheus, Odysseus and Aesclepius to fall back on (among others).