Vorkosigan

<shrug> There doesn't seem to be any tradition anywhere that Pilate did not exist. I went through Mead at Peter's DIDJESUSEXIST website, and a bunch of the Dutch Radicals. All seem to take Pilate's existence for granted, and there are no references to anyone who doesn't. You'd think that they would have to deal with that.

Classics-L had some posts but site appears to be down (that appears to the only thread there mentioning him). "Historicity of Pontius Pilate" produced vague claims and only 5 hits. "Pontius Pilate was a myth" produced one hit, another unsupported claim. I think this must be consigned to Christian propaganda until otherwise proven. However, if someone could dredge the threads out of CLASSICS-L:

http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/searches/

maybe they would say something intelligent.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Found the threads here in the monthly archives, you can read them yourselves. Search "Pilate" in your browser to get there more rapidly.

http://omega.cohums.ohio-state.edu/m...CLA-L/1999/05/

There is nothing there, I think.

Vorkosigan

Layman

As, so now it's "randomly." I thought you said "casually," which certainly seemed to fit how you used it here.

Oh wait, you did say "casually."

None of which I am arguing about Toto.

Doctor X

More to point:

Is there any evidence of a denial of the historical existence of Pilate in the literature?

Does it have any relevance to current scholarship?

--J.D.

Toto

None. I have searched the historical freethought literature on the secular web library and on positiveatheism.com, and no author there, including Wheless or Remsberg, claims that Pilate was a mythical invention.

Since there is independent attestation of Pilate in non-Christian literature, there would be no particular reason to doubt Pilate's existence.

It is only relevant to the charge by some Christian apologists that "archeology proves the Bible in the face of skeptics' doubts." We can infer from this that some Christians appear to be willing to distort the record to uphold that claim.

The ball in is Jim Larmore's court.

Jim Larmore

I made the statement because of a section I read in the book" Jesus the great debate" by Grant Jeffreys. I am continuing to look for it and I will post it when I get it, thats a promise

Roger Pearse

Thank you for these details. It is quite possible that some atheists were maintaining the idea in 1961 (after all, there are certainly still atheists maintaining that Poggio Bracciolini forged the Annales of Tacitus today, despite the existence of an 11th century manuscript, because I've been abused by them). But in general the date cannot be right, since the inscription was discovered rather before then.

It *is* interesting. Perhaps I ought to have a look through some material from ca. 1900; or perhaps see if I can find some details on the publication of that inscription, and work back. Not sure what the search strategy should be, but I think about it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Jim Larmore

I've been unable to get in touch with Grant Jeffreys directly , but like the above post have pointed out. The google search reveals a general disbelief in Pilate by the "liberal critics" but fails to name anyone. You can check this out in the following sites.
http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissarl.htm
http://www.apologeticinfo.org

One source on these sites says the critics in the 19th century were skeptical of Pilates existence the other just says "liberal critics"

I will continue to look until I exhaust my sources but I'm sure somewhere a name or group will be identified which will satisfy the claim made.

Toto

Jim - neither of those links works. Did you mean apologeticsinfo.org ?

Jesus the Great Debate (or via: amazon.co.uk)

appears to be standard apologetics. Grant Jeffreys appears to also believe in the Biblecode.

Vorkosigan

I put in a message to XTALK about doubters of Pilate.

Vorkosigan