Soul Invictus

This should be a fairly clear question. By 'Biblical characters', I'm referring to those that are referenced in alleged historical events. Some of these people would include, but are not limited to:

Adam, Eve, the twelve apostles, Paul (isn't he supposed to be from Patmos?), Noah and his sons, Goliath, Samson, etc (I think you get the picture)

Toto

By evidence, I assume that you mean evidence outside the Bible (if the Bible itself is evidence, there is evidence for all of them.)

None of the characters you mention have any evidence outside Scripture. Paul was not from Patmos - he was reputed to be of Tarsus.

Soul Invictus

Yes, I am referring to extrabiblical and religious texts. I'm looking for some sort of census data, or state/country records...whatever would have been appropriate for that time, as in our time we have ID cards and social security numbers.

I picked the wrong guy. I meant John. I believe he was supposed to be from Patmos. Anyway, I hope that the pool of people that I'm referring to is evident. I'm not referring to people such as King Herod to which there is extrabiblical support for his existence.

Peter Kirby

What's your question: is there evidence outside the bible for those characters not already attested by extrabiblical evidence? Well, no.

best wishes,
Peter Kirby

IvanJames

Well, yeah, Peter, but how about those already attested to? Inquiring minds wanna know! I want to be able to say something about it to the next fundie I meet!

I mean, your response was totally warranted, but it effectively was kinda the last word in the thread. I had a "Hey! I was watching that!" experience! ;-)

---Ivan James

Vinnie

We have primary evidence on Paul (he left behind writings unless you deny the 7 genuine ones as later forgeries). Paul is mentioned by others ca. 100 as well (again unless you subscrbe to some form of forgery theopry). Therefore any "contemporaries" Paul mentions are attested to by contemporary-primary data and should be accepted at face value.

Josephus mentions the Baptist and of course there is the disputed reference to Jesus and the mention of James. Other than Paul on contemporaries and Josephus on James it seems that any attestation of NT figures is all secondary and its level of credibility depends on theories of authorship, pre-gospel sources and dating (e.g. how early is a text and is it independent of these other texts and or can it be shown to be from an earlier source (by this I mean something equivalent to what some would term an Mark-Q overlapp)).

For example Thomas and Mark both mention a follower of Jesus named Matthew. This increases the likelihood of Jesus having at least one prominent follower named Matthew (or if a mythicist) the Christ Movement having at least one significant player named Matthew. Of course one has to come up with "evidence" that these are the same Matthew's (would the author have needed to distinguish or was the self-labeled esoteric sayings Gospel intended to be widely dispersed?)

OT figures I don't know much on. But I can tell you safely there is no evidence of a historical Adam and Eve since the account is a mythological origins story which is discredited by modern science. Was there some guy named Noah in ancient history who had a story written after him? Possibly but may I ask why you ask this question?

I mean, who cares if there was some historical "Moses" behind the Biblical Moses? Its kind of a pointless question if you ask me and only relevant to historians trying to put all the details together for whatever reason. The fact is that the forest is clearly an illusion. So who cares if some of the tree images in this illusion correspond vaguely to some real trees?

Vinnie

Sven

AFAIK, most of the kings of the OT are referenced in extrabiblical sources.

Unfortunately for the fundies, of all them, David and Solomon are not referenced.

Source: "The Bible Unearthed".

Thomas II

Toto,
Just as a reference:
http://www.spiritrestoration.org/Arc...he%20bible.htm

Toto

An interesting compilation. I have not gone through all of it, but I notice that many of the characters with references in extraBiblical sources are characters in Acts mentioned in Josephus - and there is a lot of evidence that the author of Acts used Josephus as a reference. Others are prominent political leaders.

Some of the notes are just confused:

Salome is mentioned in Josephus as the daugher of Herodias, but in Josephus' history, there is no mention of Salome dancing or having John the Baptist beheaded - that story is undoubtedly a fictional tale.

And there is this:

which seems to refer to this: Paul on Cyprus

But all I can find on this historic find is this one press release from 1999. There is no mention of it in the EXCAVATIONS OF THE ITALIAN MISSION IN THE "SANCTUARY OF APOLLON AT TOUMBALLOS" AT NEA PAPHOS, so I suspect that this was a case of creative interpretation.

Thomas II

My take is that some characters are historical and some allegorical, and archetypal. For example, the story of Jonah and the whale is clearly one of the many...
In fact I find way more interesting the allegorical than the historical. The historical might tell me something that happened to that character, but the allegorical is going to teach me something about my inner self...