Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Keith&Co. · 04-07-2008, 06:30 PM

Quote:

sugarhitman, why this desire to "prove" the existence of Jesus "empircally." For Christians

But this isn't for 'christains.'

It's for him.

He offers 'facts' that support his beliefs.
Others criticize his facts, his process, his conclusions.
He won't engage because he already knows the right conclusion, and the motivations of each and every critic who doesn't accept every sugarhitman post as another gospel.

Later, he gets to heaven and can look his skybeast in the eye and sincerely say 'i tried.'
He pulls a chair up to the edge of the cloud and happily watches skeptics and misbelievers burn in the lake, validating his beliefs, his ego, his self image as one with the inside track on 'Truth.'

aa5874 · 04-07-2008, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gamera

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarhitman

No. But it does show exactly that told in the Acts, and the Gospels.

I'm a Christian. Let me state unequivocally that if God wanted to prove the historicity of Jesus he could have done a better job than an ambiguous disputed passage in Tacitus, a politically motivated historian given to bouts of nostalgia and romanticism.

sugarhitman, why this desire to "prove" the existence of Jesus "empircally." For Christians even if the historicity of Jesus could be "proven" (whatever that means), how would it in any way relate to the real issue for Christians, which is the acceptance of the gospel as a narrative about the transformational power of God's love, a narrative that can never be shown by empirical data but only accepted by faith.

How can an erroneous mis-leading narrative be about God's love? The NT is not really a narrative about God. Tell me, what did God do in the NT?

Tiberius · 04-07-2008, 09:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarhitman

"Christus, from whom the name had its origin suffered the EXTREME PENALTY during the riegn of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, PONTIUS PILATUS

During the reign of Tiberius? I can assure you that I have never heard of such a thing occuring during my reign.

You may now bow before me and thank me for clearing this up. Back to work people, nothing to see here....

Minimalist · 04-07-2008, 10:06 PM

Hey, Tiberius, kindly explain that you did not appoint procurators but praefects in your time.

dog-on · 04-08-2008, 12:24 AM

Hell, it could be original. Mark may have even used this tid-bit to help story line...

Roger Pearse · 04-08-2008, 12:30 AM

As far as I know, Tacitus is our main literary source for everything that happened in the reign of Tiberius. Even though he hated him like poison for introducing delatio into Roman politics.

No serious person proposes that Annals 15:44 is forged. The claim goes back to a certain Ross, whose book is amateurish and who claimed that Poggio Bracciolini forged it (as if), regardless of the fact that the text comes to us in a manuscript of the 11th century.

Claims that the testimony of Tacitus on inconvenient matters can be disregarded by thinking of some sort of reason why he "couldn't" have known what he was talking about seem very selective to me, and calculated merely for convenience.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin · 04-08-2008, 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarhitman

Also Antiquities, The jewish wars, the First Apology all say that Pilate was a procurator...as well as this Senator....who is in the know.

Rubbish. When you use translations for language purposes you can often be blatantly wrong. The Antiquities, the Jewish War and the Apology were all written in Greek. The Greek word used is epitropos. It doesn't mean "procurator", but it was used to refer to Roman political appointments, most of whom were procurators. However, Tacitus knows that before the time of Claudius, Judea was under military rule. It was Claudius who put Judea under a procurator (H. Bk 5.9). It's not strange that the only inscription dealing with Pilate (from Caesarea Maritima) indicates he was a prefect. (The mislabeling of Pilate in A. 15.44 is merely one more piece of evidence to show that the passage wasn't written by Tacitus.)

spin

spin · 04-08-2008, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

No serious person proposes that Annals 15:44 is forged.

I love it when Roger Pearse floats this puerile rhetoric. Caught up as he is in his own religious biases, he's certainly the wrong person to make pronouncements about who is or is not a serious person. With never any tangible evidence to support him, he perennially makes limp appeals to authority.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

Claims that the testimony of Tacitus on inconvenient matters can be disregarded by thinking of some sort of reason why he "couldn't" have known what he was talking about seem very selective to me, and calculated merely for convenience.

It's convenient that apparently Tacitus makes a mistake about something he has already shown knowledge of, ie the status of the administrator of Judea. It's convenient that a famous orator should make the blunder of an awful alliteration in the middle of the passage. It's also convenient that somehow the writer loses track of his topic and wanders off to a dissipating discourse on christians. In short Roger Pearse hides behind convenience.

spin

Doug Shaver · 04-08-2008, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarhitman

I wonder what the critics has to say about this?

Why do you wonder? It's quite obvious that you don't care one bit.

Malachi151 · 04-08-2008, 05:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarhitman

I have just recently learned of this Tacitus, who was a Roman Senator and historian. And this is what he says about Yeshua:

"Christus, from whom the name had its origin suffered the EXTREME PENALTY during the riegn of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, PONTIUS PILATUS, and A MOST MISCHIEVIOUS SUPERSTITION, thus checked for the moment, again broke out in Judea , THE FIRST SOURCE OF THE EVIL, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular."

This from a Roman Senator! He was in a position to know, as he had to have official historical government documents.

From this we learned that Christ was knowned about very early and not the creation of Rome. As Tacitus makes clear that the Romans regarded Christ and his followers as "evil." So why would they create something they viewed as evil? And what did he mean by christianity being "checked at the moment"? And how was this "evil" checked? This proves that 1. Yeshua existed. 2. Christians were indeed persecuted by the Roman goverment.

I wonder what the critics has to say about this?

Also there are other sources who testify to this same thing like Josephus, and the Jewish Talmud....surely these testimonies are not fiction.

This goes over all the relevant info on this subject:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...history.htm#10

BTW, there is nothing of any value on the topic of Jesus in the Talmud.

Quote:

Tacitus and Pliny the Younger reflect instead what they have heard Christians of their own day say. Despite various claims, no early rabbinic text (the earliest being the Mishna, composed ca. A.D. 200) contains information about Jesus, and later rabbinic texts simply reflect knowledge of, and mocking midrash on, Christian texts and preaching.
- The Present State of the ‘Third Quest’ for the Historical Jesus: Loss and Gain; J.P. Meier, 1999

J.P. Meier is a Christian scholar who believes in the historical existence of Jesus BTW.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

04-07-2008, 10:06 PM	#44
Minimalist Veteran Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,808	Hey, Tiberius, kindly explain that you did not appoint procurators but praefects in your time.

04-08-2008, 12:24 AM	#45
dog-on Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 3,397	Hell, it could be original. Mark may have even used this tid-bit to help story line...

04-08-2008, 12:30 AM	#46
Roger Pearse Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: N/A Posts: 4,370	As far as I know, Tacitus is our main literary source for everything that happened in the reign of Tiberius. Even though he hated him like poison for introducing delatio into Roman politics. No serious person proposes that Annals 15:44 is forged. The claim goes back to a certain Ross, whose book is amateurish and who claimed that Poggio Bracciolini forged it (as if), regardless of the fact that the text comes to us in a manuscript of the 11th century. Claims that the testimony of Tacitus on inconvenient matters can be disregarded by thinking of some sort of reason why he "couldn't" have known what he was talking about seem very selective to me, and calculated merely for convenience. All the best, Roger Pearse

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.