Solo

I am not arguing one way or the other; I am setting the reports aside as more-than-likely hearsay evidence.

Jiri

spin

If you accept that the text containing the Testimonium Flavianum has been fiddled with, your "partial interpolation", how do you arbitrarily decide which bit Josephus wrote and which bit he didn't?

Once you chop out the reference to "he was the christ", that makes the other reference to Jesus, "called christ" (a phrase straight out of GMt), the only time the term is used in Josephus, despite the fact that the term occurs over 40 times in the LXX. Obviously Josephus avoided the term, so why would he use it here (especially, if he knew the full story, for a person who was executed and therefore obviously to the devout Jew Josephus plainly not the messiah)?

Sadly embarrassed fumbling with Josephus and cutting out the ugly bits is not a coherent approach to the problem.

As for the gospels, date them, before you try to use them as having any relevance to the period of 25 - 33 CE. We take notice of Josephus mainly for his narrative of his own time. Tacitus writes about either things he has seen or things in most cases he can do direct research for. This is true for most of the important Greek historians, Thucydides, Polybius, Posidonius. They wrote during their owen times and you know when they lived. Who exactly wrote the gospels? when? where? to whom? from what cultural context? Without attempting to validate your texts how can you use them?


spin

Malachi151

These things aren't evidence for anything, in fact they are evidence against a historical Jesus.

"Paul" never disusses a real live Jesus. We don't even know what Q is, but further study shows that more and more of the NT is sources from the OT. New links between the two are found every year. Practically all of the NT story can be recreaed from the OT texts, with a few exceptions, such as John the Baptist, and Pilate, etc., these few historical bits. Every act of Jesus, however, and pretty much everything he said, comes from the Septugient (OT).

All of the narrative gospels come from after the destruction of Judea, and they are all based on Septugient stories.

There isn't any evidence that there WAS EVER any narrative of Jesus prior to the writting of the first gospel.

In fact, it seems unlikely that there was any story of Jesus before this, because if there was this story would have been the basis for the gospels, which are obviously not based on any oral tradition, because they are based on the OT.

In fact, there is one important thing to note about the Tacitus quote. Tacitus wrote in 109 CE about something that supposedly happened in 64 CE, however we cannot infer that the description of Jesus that Tacitus gives in 109 would have been known in 64. Indeed, its highly doubtful that the Christians in 64 CE would have said anything about Pilate. Tacitus is here giving a 109 explanation for what Christianity is based on, when talking about Christians from 64.

Solo

This would be quite a powerful argument if we knew the writers had independent evidence when evaluating the issue. But we cannot assume that they had. If the Christians themselves traditioned that Jesus was an executed criminal they had no reason to suspect he was invented.

The sobering fact of the matter is that the gospel narratives are the original source material and until something historically independent (within a probabilistic scenario) of them bubbles up we are stuck with them.

Look, gnosis, this is not a good way of arguing a good case. One should not use credential-mongering and generalized dismissals ever, but especially not, if there are much better arguments. You saw what happened in the other thread when I asked for explanation of a Rechabite dignitary and high-priest hopeful James accepting to worship a pagan idol in his church ? This is a very difficult proposition. But we know that a figure of Jesus was venerated in James' congregation, whatever the personal relationship between them and even if none existed. So while the cultural transfer of the creed from Judaism to paganism is well documented historically, the obverse, with which the mythicist school stands or falls, has absolutely zero historical evidence. So why should I resort to enumerating Phd's or drag in 9-11 conspiracy theories ?

Jiri

Roger Pearse

Tacitus wrote at this time about the reign of Tiberius. Do we apply the same logic to the entire contents of Annals?

Speaking as someone who was alive in 1965, I am a little surprised to be told that anything I write today in 2006 about that year is not evidence!

I'm sorry, Malachi151, but you've been slowly but surely led down the path of obscurantism. There is no reason for any of this. Our primary sources for all first century history and the policies and habits of the people who lived then are Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio, and Josephus. Being human they have their own ideas and make mistakes etc; but we need some definitive evidence to reject what they say about their own times, and these sort of arguments highlight that there isn't any.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Malachi151

No, I think you misunderstand.

We have no evidence that the Christians in 64 said that "Christus was killed by Pilate".

More than likely what happened, if this quote is even accurate at all, is that in 64 CE some Christians were rounded up and killed.

Tactius, then, in 109 CE recorded this event, and then added as many details as he could to explain who Christians were, but his information about "who Christians were", was coming from 109, not 64.

I'm not sure how you could even attempt to argue otherwise?

spin

Umm, sorry, Cassius Dio, no. He is certainly a secondary source for the period, born around 165 CE.


spin

Roger Pearse

Sorry, but I refer you to what I just wrote above.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Amaleq13

They disparaged them as ignorant, superstitious bumpkins for their beliefs but the quote from Julian that mountainman is so fond of is the closest I know of to what you are suggesting.

Malachi151

I don't see your point. Tacitus is speaking about his own times. His own times is 109 CE, not 64 CE. He's doing what any good journalist would do.

If I write a story about the Vietnam War, I may talk about Ho Chi Minh like this.

In 1945 the Vietnamese people decided to back Ho Chi Minh as their leader. Millions of Vietnamese people loved and supported Ho Chi Minh, fighting and dying for his cause.

Ho Chi Minh was originally named Wong Woe (made this up, but I know he changed his name), and traveled to France as a youth, where he came into contact with the Communist Party. He later met with Vladamir Lenin shortly after the Russian Revolution.

etc., etc.

Now, I as a journalist am adding in detail about who Ho Chi Minh is, and what we know about him today. That doesn't mean that the followers of Ho Chi Minh knew these things. Does what I just wrote imply that the followers of Ho Chi Minh knew that he had changed his name? Does it imply that they knew he had visited France?

In this case, because he was a real person, its likely that some of his followers did know these things, but by no means is that definitive. I'm sure that many people who "fought and died for Ho Chi Minh", never knew that he had changed his name or that he had ever lived in France or met with Lenin.

A better example, perhaps would be Star Wars. Star Wars was released in 1974.

Today, I may write the following.

In 1974 the block buster movie Star Wars was released, whose main character is Luke Skywalker. Luke's father is Darth Vader, whom Luke was being hidden from on the planet Tatooine.

Now, I am writing from today, when we know the whole story, about a movie that was released in 1974, but in 1974 people didn't know that Vader was Luke's father.

I'm saying that the same applies to the Tactius statement.

In 109 CE the story was that Jesus (Christus) was killed by Pilate, but that does not mean that that was the story in 64. In fact we have nothing prior to the gospel of Mark in 67-75 that says Jesus was killed by Pilate.