Bernard Muller

Did I say Jesus? And the one terminated by Pilate would not be Jesus? And Tacitus and Suetonius did not put Christians during the rule of Nero?

aa5874

Not even Church writers of antiquity used Tacitus or Suetonius to claim Jesus did exist or used Tacitus or Suetonius to corroborate the Forgeries in "Antiquities of the Jews".

Pliny the younger Personally knew Tacitus and Suetonius yet he himself did NOT appear to have heard about a character called Jesus or that Christians worshiped.

Origen did NOT use Tacitus or Origen to claim Jesus existed although he used Josephus.

Eusebius used ONLY the forgeries in Josephus and NEVER ever used Tacitus or Suetonius to claim Jesus did exist.

Incredibly, up to the 5th century, NO Church writer or apologetic used Tacitus or Suetonius to claim Jesus existed ONLY the forgeries in Josephus.

Bernard Muller

The existence of Jesus was not an issue then. Even critics did not claim Jesus never existed on earth. No Christian writers we know of had to defend the existence of Jesus on earth. However some reacted to Gnostics or Docetists who thought that Jesus was not quite human (even if he looked so). But that's about it.
The fact Pliny the Younger did not feel he had to tell Trajan what he heard from the Christians he interrogated likely indicates that the Roman elite knew already about Christian beliefs.

Duvduv

Pliny is only relevant if you rely on Giacondo, a biased 15th century church source since he discovered that alleged letter.

LegionOnomaMoi

Who was arguing he didn't? For example, Origen attacks Celsus for alleging Jesus was born because his mother had sex with a soldier, not because Celsus argued he didn't exist.

aa5874

Again, you are dead wrong. Even Christians did NOT know if Jesus did actually exist.

The existence of Jesus with human flesh was a FUNDAMENTAL problem for Christians.

Examine a book called "On the Flesh of Christ" attributed to Tertullian.

It is completely erroneous that the existence of Jesus in the flesh was not an issue.

And now, in the same book the nature of Jesus is described.

On the Flesh of Christ The Jesus of the Church was a MYTH, the son of God WITHOUT a human father.


You really don't know that Pliny told Trajan that he TORTURED some of the Christians to find out what they believed.

You show an extremely limited knowledge of the Pliny letter.

Bernard Muller

to aa,
Your quote from Tertullian does not say Jesus did not look like a man on earth ("He only wanted to assume flesh, of the flesh of man without the seed of a man;" AND "after He was born of the virgin, He was able to have a woman for His mother" ). The only difference is that the tiny male seed did not come from a man. That's it.

Pliny also wrote he interrogated ex-Christians, who left Christianity years ago, who did not need to be tortured to tell all about Christian stuff: "Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years."
Actually, it is what these ex-Christians said to Pliny which is communicated, with some details, to Trajan. From the tortured two deaconesses, Pliny got only "nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition" which Pliny did not feel he had to explain to Trajan.

Bingo the Clown-O

How does your possibility that Matthew didn’t know Paul’s writings counter the claim that Paul post-dates Matthew? It looks to me like the possibility that Matthew didn’t know Paul’s writings supports the claim that Paul post-dates Matthew because it explains why Matthew didn’t know Paul’s writings. :wave:

Right?

And how can you be sure that your unsupported assumption that Matthew didn’t care hasn’t led you down the yellow brick road? :wave:

The passage in Tatian’s Diatessaron demands an explanation. And that Matthew is redacted satisfies that demand. In Matthew the “holy people” rise from their graves after Jesus’ resurrection – which is absurd because if that were original then the centurion could not have been awed by it. Now the Diatessaron doesn’t have that problem. I think it is very reasonable to consider the possibility that Matthew was redacted.

But you are making the same mistake the amateurs make: You are looking for a smoking gun. You are too busy looking for a single item of ‘proof’ and failing to recognize an item of indirect evidence.

Will you admit that a collection of indirect evidence can accumulate and become corroborating evidence? (Y/N)

EarlDoherty

I haven't "assumed" anything. I was offering likely explanations for your observations other than your claim that the situation between Matthew and Paul lets us "know" (your word) that Paul is a fiction and that the Paulines were written after Matthew. To make such a claim is totally unfounded and I was pointing that out. If you want to water that down to regarding it as "indirect evidence" even that is overstating the case, but at least you've backed away from your pontification and your own claims about having a smoking gun which bestows certain knowledge. At best it's "circumstantial evidence" and aside from being weak, there is as much if not more of that sort of thing on the pro-Paul side to negate any "accumulation" you may think you have.

Incidentally, the Matthean text does not say that the centurion was awed by the rising of the dead from their graves. That could hardly have been in Matthew's mind, since those graves were not likely regarded as within sight of the Calvary hill, nor would the corpses have wandered onto the site within minutes of Jesus' death. Matthew has simply structured his passage in an awkward sequence, but he does take the trouble to point out that the basic thing witnessed by the centurion which prompted his reaction was "the earthquake" and not the rising of the dead. Furthermore, I have no objection to assuming the possibility that the Diatessaron represents a redaction over Matthew to try to eliminate his ambiguity. But this does nothing to support your claim that Matthew has to predate Paul.

Perhaps you should return to the circus, Bingo. (And you can take your little smilies with you, as well as your smug "See?"s and "Understand now?"s.)

Earl Doherty

Solo

The idea that Luke was written by a woman faces a big grammatical challenge in Luke 1:3. In Greek, the participle in 'having investigated' (parēkolouthēkoti) has a masculine form.

Best,
Jiri