Metacrock

ahahaha, yea we this to each other. Haran and I both are in the habit of saying "you guys" meaning the ones we wind up arguing with all the time (for me I guess you, Steven, some others who around now) but sounding like everyone on the sec Web.

sorry, we should both try to do better!!!

Toto

Haran, this is an obvious urban legend. I have explained why it is unlikely that any scholar thought that Pilate was a myth - he does not fit the profile of a mythic hero or archetype, and there is non-Christian evidence of his existence.

It is clearly false that the idea that Pilate was a myth was widespread, since there is no trace of it in the historical materials that I do have access to.

And when you try to pin down the origin of this idea, it keeps shifting. Did skeptical scholars before 1961 think Pilate a myth, despite the evidence of Philo and Josephus? Did some obscure German in the 19th century think that?

And how can you defend Monty's original statement

Metacrock

well I'll tell you one thing: every non professional "apologeist" I mean Christians who do apologetics, as oppossed to real professional scholars,who speaks of the historicity of Pilate, begins by saying "sketpics once questioned his existence, but since an Italiain expedition in 1961..." they love to mention the date for some reason.

They never document where it comes form, but they love to say it. I just spent the last hour, like a fool, trying to find someone on the net questioning Pilate. That's why I think it might be in the 19th century. I think the deal really is that one person dealt with a skeptic at some point who said that, and it became a commonplace to say that.

I found tons of examples of apologists saying that very same setnence. it's scarcy how they do this group think thing (no comments now).


So I don't think Monty is lying, I think he's just guilty of quoting a common place truism.

Metacrock

Meta: "fictional then!" he doesn't have to be a real mythological hero in the Jo Cambell sense (sp?) to be calimed as 'fictional' by some 19th century skeptic.


Meta: I bet they did, at least in the 19th century. But I don't care! skeptics have their own mytological things they love to site without docs!

Like the insistance that all scholars see the TF as forgery, when in reality hardly any of them do.

Toto

There was one skeptic that wrote that in the 1980's. I don't think that it has been repeated in that fashion since then.

Skeptics are not in the habit of relying on "most scholars" since most of the scholars in the field are Christian.

But why don't you care, in spite of wasting an hour on the web looking for the reference?

Metacrock

Meta: Are you sayin that skeptics never say that most scholars think the TF was forged? That's so dishonest. They say every single time. I could start a thread right now and they would say it.



Meta: cause it doesn't matter. It doesn't make any difference to anything. It doesnt' change the facts, it doesn't prove anything. I spend some time looking cause it would be nice to show you up, but that's just a personal fun kind of thing.

Toto

If pressed, I imagine that most skeptics would say that the scholarly consensus is that there is at least some forgery in the TF, since that statement is true.

Layman

I seem to remember a certain skeptic-become-moderator who argued that a majority of scholars considered the entire TF a forgery until Meier cobbled together his argument in the 90s. Said skeptic had to backtrack greatly once Kirby and I showed him the error of his ways.

People on both sides say stuipd things, Toto. Meaning it would not surprise me if some skeptics 75 years ago or so did doubt Pilate's existence and it would not surprise me if it was just a crackpot skeptic who grabbed a few headlines.

Toto

At one point, I thought I remembered reading a claim that a majority of scholars considered the entire TF a forgery. But my memory proved faulty, and I did not continue to argue that when I could not locate what I thought I remembered.

How long will people here continue to argue that there were skeptics who doubted the existence of a Roman official described in Josephus and Philo, in the face of absolutely no credible evidence that those alleged skeptics ever existed? when there is no conceivable motive or method for such a doubt?

I'll just wait and see.

Steven Carr

Professor Montgomery has replied to me again

I THOUGHT IT WAS A MISTAKE EVEN TO REPLY TO YOU. YOU USE A ABBREVIATED VERSION OF PAPIAS ON THE WEB, LACKING EVEN THE NECESSARY PARAGRAPH NUMBERS,
AND YOU CANNOT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND WHY I CITED THE PASSAGES I DID.

I HAVE LONG BELIEVED THAT UNBELIEF SOFTENS THE BRAIN, AND YOU SURELY CONFIRM THIS.

FORTUNATELY, NO-ONE OF ANY CONSEQUENCE BOTHERS WITH YOUR TRASHY SKEPTIC WEBSITES ANYWAY.

DO NOT EVER SEND ME ANOTHER E-MAIL.

JWM

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The only web site I quoted to him was http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/