wordy

Steven, wow that was assertive.

dog-on

There is nothing in the Gospels about a lot of things contained in various later Jesus stories either... doesn't change the root source.


Hegesippus is very late, secondary and obviously derives his understanding of Jesus from the Gospels and Epistles, unless you can point to another source.

Josephus 'Antiquities 20' is at best, based on Paul (epistles) and at worst an interpolation.

Tacitus seems to be repeating Christian information. There is no evidence that he has any other source.

Ben C Smith

This is just an assertion on your part. Why should it be binding on anybody else if you are not going to mount the necessary argument?

Again, you are asserting things that you have not argued. Show me how Hegesippus got his information about the activities of the desposynoi and the rest of the dominical family from the gospels.

Show me. For example, where in the Pauline epistles is the death of James mentioned?

What evidence is there that he has a Christian source? Is not the problem that he does not give us his source?

Ben.

dog-on

Such is the nature of the subject matter, at hand. How about some physical evidence of any type of Christianity in first century Palestine?

He made it up?

Good an answer as any, unless you have something to corroborate it with.

How would James be relevant if it were not for the Pauline epistles?

Yup, that is a problem, but regardless, what he says seems to be a cynical and condensed version of Mark's passion.

Ben C Smith

If he made it up, then he did not have a source for it.

But the existence of the dominical family is corroborated by Julius Africanus.

Because James was clearly, quite apart from the Pauline epistles, a big figure in early Christianity.

He says that Christ was executed by Pilate. This could be a cynical and condensed version of almost anything ever written or said about the death of Jesus. If you are not going to actually make the argument, it could have come from Roman sources; it could have come from Josephus; it could have come from Christians that Tacitus himself encountered.

Ben.

dog-on

The part about the relatives? I agree...

Because of his camios in Paul and Mark...


Which all came from Mark and/or Paul which came from revelation and/or scripture, unless you have some other evidence you are hiding from me...

Ben C Smith

And in Acts. And in the gospel of Thomas. And in the Protevangelium. And in the epistles of James and Jude. And in the gospel of the Hebrews. And in the apocalypse of James. And in the pseudo-Clementines. And in Josephus. And in Clement and Origen.

The problem here is that you are instinctively reducing all of these sources to (A) strict dependence on the gospels and epistles where there is overlap and (B) strict invention where there is none. You are not arguing for it; you are assuming it.

You even wrote that Hegesippus making stuff up was as good an answer as any. Well, as good an answer as any does nothing to make your answer correct. How many fingers am I holding up behind my back, Robert? Four is as good an answer as any, right? (And it is an even better answer than, say, fourteen.) Is that a good argument that four is the answer? Of course not.

My position on this thread is that I do not know for certain what exactly the sources are for, say, Tacitus. Therefore, I do not have to present evidence one way or another on the matter on this thread. (Elsewhere I have argued, following S. C. Carlson, that his source was Josephus; but I insist that the conclusion is not a lock.) Your position that Tacitus et alii all depend on the gospels and epistles in some way, OTOH, requires argument. So far you have presented none (except for as good an answer as any).

Ben.

No Robots

I guess you just answered your own question:

Steven Carr

This does appear to be her position.

As April herself said 'First, the goal to prove Jesus' existence or not is methodologically a black hole from my perspective.'

If you want to know what was 'second', April continued :-

'Second, another quest for what we can know about Jesus will turn up nothing new, because each thing that will be identified will be easily deconstructed by the members of the group. When this happens, I can imagine that the minimal-to-nothing "evidence" could be framed as "proof" for Jesus' non-existence. '

There is minimal-to-nothing evidence for the historicity of Jesus, which is one reason why April is not going to contribute to the project, as she is content that Jesus existed.

GakuseiDon

Just because a historical Jesus is a plausible hypothesis, it doesn't mean that it is the strongest hypothesis. It may be that there are a number of plausible hypotheses. Hopefully the Jesus Project will produce results that will enable us to examine them for plausibility.