Chris Weimer

Speaking from a pseudo-mythicist, the only two sources seriously worthy of supporting the historicity of Christ are Josephus and Tacitus.

darstec

And I wish we had all of their original undoctored texts.

PS And I don't mean texts that some think they've created the originals. 900 - 1000 years just leaves far too much time to add one phrase at a time until quite a bit is unoriginal.

for instance in another thread there was a source mentioned that one manuscript might have had Barabbas and another Bar Abbas. Considering the original Greek would have been written in all upper characters with no spaces in between, it was rather specious for someone to maintain that stance. How could one know the difference.

And with ancient Hebrew the problem is compounded. Hence we get "translation by tradition."

Chris Weimer

I don't know. The answer ultimately lies with the mini-synoptic problem.

Clivedurdle

From bit about Lucian.

Is this saying Jesus wrote books or what?

andrewcriddle

No it's saying that Peregrinus Proteus during his Christian phase wrote books to guide his fellow-Christians.

Andrew Criddle

spamandham

Neither of these contradict the mythicist position. They do prove Christians existed in the first century though. Both Josephus and Tacitus refer to Jesus as 'Christ', which strongly suggests their sources were Christians rather than Roman records.

Chris Weimer

Which mythicist position? I've yet to see a mythicist position that isn't contradicted by itself. Moreover, if Tacitus and Luke both used Josephus' TF, that posits a very early date for Josephus' messianic label.

Hey, I've got an idea. What if Xristos was really Xrhstos...in Josephus!?

spamandham

...the position that there was not a human Jesus upon which the Jesus of the Bible was based, but that the Jesus of the Bible is pure myth.

Have you never heard of this one?

That's a big if. I see no evidence that either Tacitus or the writer of Luke based there information off the single short paragraph Josephus wrote about Jesus - even if that paragraph was not a later forgery.

Amaleq13

You might be interested in the discussions of this topic found in the following threads:

Josephus

Evidence of a 1st Century CE Jesus

Chris Weimer

This is an assertion. There's no real position behind it. What's the evidence?

Never quite so bare of details.

The 2nd link that Amaleq13 gave deals directly with this (you might have to read it, though).