Toto

Just housekeeping. We try to run a tight ship around here.

archibald

Indeed.

So, Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus all interpolated on this Jesus citation thing.

Nazareth interpolated into Mark.

Numerous interpolations in Paul, amounting to as much as 50% of the texts.

And those are just the first ones that come to mind from recently.

I believe they are all speculative and unevidenced, apart from partial interplation in Josephus?

It seems, no one needs to make a case that MJ involves more speculations, while you are doing it for them.

MCalavera

And he does it all while housekeeping.

He's good.

mountainman

To understand the mythicist position on Josephus you need only follow the entire crew of 18th and 19th and early 20th century scholarship on the "TF". For the Roman witnesses, a few posts above I gave a reference to Arthur Drews ONLINE. Since then many other arguments have been made in addition to Drews. You must address each item separately.


Books have been written about the non-existent Nazareth.

100% in the case of the assessment by the Dutch radicals. To this analysis the entire Pauline corpus is a 2nd century forgery.

The failures of each are not speculative, you just have not yet read through the arguments and evidence AGAINST the claims you believe to be true. Drews is a good start, even though he writes from 1912.

Speculations should only be made in consultation with the evidence in each specific instance. It seems reasonably clear you have not read the claims for example of Drews (1912) on the Roman Witnesses. It's not all that long, and to your benefit he even lists the positions FOR and AGAINST.

The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus/Part 2/Section 1 (1912) by Arthur Drews, translated by Joseph McCabe.


Sloncha!

archibald

mm, It appears to me they are almost all speculative. that is to say, however good the arguments (and by the way I did read that link to Drews when you posted it earlier, so it is not 'reasonably clear' that I haven't) there is a lack of evidence. That is what speculative means, it does not mean 'unlikely'. Speculation can be correct.

archibald

On the other side of the coin, there is Roger pearse:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/tacitus/

Kapyong

Gday,

What?
Suetonius is NOT claimed as interpolated.
The argument is that it's not clearly about Jesus.

Tacitus is also NOT claimed as interpolated.
The argument there is that it's late reporting of Christian beliefs.

Josephus widely IS claimed as interpolated, based on evidence.
Not just by mythicists.

What?
That's not the argument at all!
It's about the whether it comes from a prophecy or Nazarois / Nazirite or whatever.

Paul is well known to be heavily interpolated.
Not just by mythicists.


Most of which are total mis-representations, none of which are unevidenced and specific to MJers.

So far you have not presented ONE single unevidenced assumption peculiar to MJers.

All?
Your list didn't contain ANY unevidenced assumption peculiar to MJers.


It seems the speculations are all in your head.


K.

MCalavera

mountainman

There is also the sensitive matter of a scribal alteration in the source manuscript. Chrestian was altered to Christian for posterity's sake.



Anyway, for the sake of the argument, suppose the Tacitus reference is genuinely from c.116 CE. If Acts was authored after this date (some claim after c.150 CE) then the earliest reference to the "Christians" is not by the Christians themselves, but by an important Roman historian. How extraordinary! Perhaps Tacitus coined the term "Christian" or "Chrestian" and the author of Acts used Tacitus as a source?

MCalavera

You make too much sense.