Petergdi

So what is your take on why Josephus and Philo don't mention Hillel?


Paul isn't a platonist or a neoplatonist. Paul is proclaiming the Gospel:
- that you can become a child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom together with Jesus Christ
- that this was made possible by Christ's faith and obedience which led to the cross
- that this was shown to be true by God raising Jesus from the dead
- that the general resurrection and judgment is coming soon

How is this really similar to Philo?

Peter.

Ben C Smith

I know I do not have to rehearse this issue on this board. The short answer here is that Josephus belongs to a list of unexpected silences only if he is actually silent, and that point must be argued. But hopefully not on this thread.

Some authors writing about Apollonius do mention Jesus: Porphyry and Hierocles (the proconsul), for example.

Furthermore, while Alexander the False Prophet is about Alexander (of course), Lucian asserts therein that Alexander was a follower of Apollonius; and Lucian mentions Christians in this same work (as well as referring to Christ himself in Peregrinus.

Juvenal wrote (in Rome) about Greek and Roman philosophers, orators, and statesmen. He wrote about Alexander, Pyrrhus, Domitian, Demosthenes, Cicero, Pompey, Hannibal, Socrates, Croesus, Epicurus, and Diogenes. Which of these should he have replaced with a crucified Galilean peasant?

Martial wrote (in Rome, from Spain) about characters in Roman society.

It would surprise me more if either of these satirists did mention Jesus than that they do not.

(I am going to confine my comments to the historical Jesus, not the historical Paul.)

Almost nil.

He is far too generous with his points at the upper end of the scale, giving an unfathomable 5 for Philo and a hardly less unreasonable 4 for Plutarch and Seneca compared to a 3 for Justus of Tiberias.

I agree with a 3 for Justus (and in doing so I am merely agreeing with Photius, who also felt he should have mentioned Jesus; but to go any higher I would have to have some context, and his work is not extant). If the references in Josephus are both spurious, I would grant him a 4 or possibly even a 5.

Ben.

aa5874

How does the silence about Jesus enhance the case for historicity? It is simply of no help at all.

The case for Jesus, as I have already pointed out, is based on nothing but imagination.

Roger Pearse

I know that this is a summary of the argument from absence, but it seems very sweeping:

"We have a mass of writing from the first century."

Do we? Do we include in this mass those works written before Jesus was born? Or just those written in places that had never heard of him? I do think that people asserting that ancient works 'must' mention him (I never see an argument as to why) need to at least specify which ones.

"Many obscure and unimportant people are mentioned."

Indeed so. But does this indicate that EVERYONE who was obscure and unimportant must turn up in ALL of them? If not, I don't quite see the point of complaining that some obscure people don't turn up in some of them (many such people, of course, in none of them).

I don't think that we know all first century literature that mentioned Jesus has been preserved, incidentally. Luke 1:1 is good evidence to the contrary. 99% of all ancient literature is lost, and we can happily presume the same applies to works that mention Jesus.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Both only just mention the existence of Jews, even though they were present and conspicuous in Rome itself; never mind legions of people offshore.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Are we talking about the Remsburg list here? If so, disinformation seems like a reasonable term for it, you know.

Interesting; are you claiming that this work 'must' mention Jesus? Where, do you think, such a mention would be?

I've gone off to look for it. The text I find is this.

The work seems to discuss almost exclusively events from the reign of Caligula, after Jesus was dead; and is a diatribe against this Flaccus, for his actions in Alexandria in that period. I couldn't find the word "Jerusalem" in it, even.

So interested to hear more.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Toto

I am about to leave on vacation, and may get back to this.

I don't think that the argument from silence in non-Christian sources is all that strong. I think that the strongest argument from silence is the silence in Paul and early Christians about a concrete historical Jesus.

I don't think Remsburg was writing disinformation. IIRC he would agree with the hypothesis that Jesus might have been an obscure peasant.

bacht

Back to Kansas? Say hi to Dorothy

patcleaver

Christians burned the pagan literature of the Roman Empire. Why would they have burned anything that was evidence of Jesus?

Christians were fraudulently manufacturing fake evidence by the cartload. There is no reason to think that the Christians would have lost any evidence that actually existed.

The lack of evidence is consistent with a mythical or fictional Jesus, and is inconsistent with an historical Jesus.

There is no primary source indicating that Jesus existed.
It is not true that Jesus ever existed.

spin

I guess that means there's none left.

They didn't like the quality of the paper?

Did you get a lead from the cart driver or something?

Why not? They weren't particularly popular before the time of Constantine.

Lack of evidence is inconsistent with a historical anything. That's reaching tautology level. However, lack of evidence is not inconsistent with a real Jesus. Most people of the past have left no evidence for their existence, but you wouldn't want to claim they weren't real.

This seems correct to me...

...But where does this unsupported claim come from?


spin