Toto

I will only repeat this once, before I split out this irrelevant sideline.

The evidence that the reference to Christ came from Christians is that it did not come from the only other known source.

If X is either A or B, and you can show that X is not A, then X must be B.

This does not "taint" the evidence. The question is whether Tacitus is an independent witness to a historical Jesus. If he researched the Roman archives and found a trial transcript, he would be an independent witness, but it appears that he did not. So he cannot be used as independent evidence for a HJ.

judge

Ok

Can you make your mind up please. You just stated a few minutes ago that..." This is not evidence that the alleged hearsay came from christians though, merely that it might not have come from official records."

Problem for you is that you left out C. you haven't shown that it must be either from official records or christians. It could be hearsay from a non christian source.

It does as you left out "C".



That part of your argument might be fine.

GakuseiDon

I agree. I actually claim that the cumulative case for a historical Jesus is overwhelming.

I agree.

It's done for humorous effect, so we can all have a good laugh and become friends.

Overwhelming cumulative case for a historical Jesus:

Gospels

The Gospels talk about a Jew called Jesus about 50 or 60 years before. The person was called Jesus and he was crucified under Pilate. No indication that anyone was confused of the genre. No indication that they were thought to be entirely fictitious. Everyone treated them as being about a historical person.

Ned Ludding response: But how do you know they were supposed to be about a historical person? They could have been ancient romances that people back then mistook as about a real person. After all, they wrote fiction back then.

Sensible answer: I don't know. I'm just giving the evidence we have.

Paul's letters

Prima-facie reading suggests a Jew called Jesus who was a man crucified in Paul's recent past. From indications in Paul and outside, he arguably wrote in the first half of the First Century. He arguably met some of the people referred to in the Gospels, and whom Papias refers to as disciples of Jesus.

Ned Ludding response: But how do you know that Paul meant "man" instead of "Heavenly Man"? Or that it was Jesus who came recently rather than "faith in Jesus"? Or that he was crucified on earth instead of the sublunar nonsense?

Sensible answer: I don't know. I'm just giving the evidence we have.

Josephus, Tacitus, Papias

Anyone of them would be enough to establish the probability of a historical Jesus.

Ned Ludding response: But how do you know that these aren't forgeries, etc.?

Sensible answer: I don't know. I'm just giving the evidence we have.

According to modern scholarship:
* The Gospels were probably a form of ancient biography
* Parts of Paul's letters were interpolations but not the parts talking about Jesus the "man"
*Josephus probably had something about Jesus Christ
* Tacitus' comment was probably original to Tacitus

Sensible opinion from Infidel's Jeffery Jay Lowder:
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ury/chap5.html

I think there is ample evidence to conclude there was a historical Jesus. To my mind, the New Testament alone provides sufficient evidence for the historicity of Jesus, but the writings of Josephus also provide two independent, authentic references to Jesus.

Now, if you want to argue anything from above, don't "Ned Ludd" it. Simply noting an alternative does not weaken a better explanation. You actually have to show why it makes for a better explanation. Let the Ned Ludding begin!

aa5874

Well, at least you have come to realize that HJ is just a BIG JOKE.

EarlDoherty

You mean kinda like Don?

I can see I’m going to be quite busy in future defending myself against people who start out intending to trash my book(s) even before reading them. (By the way, Michael Turton promised a review of JNGNM several months ago, but it has yet to appear. Perhaps it will provide a little balance against Don, Ehrman and McGrath.)

And who is to decide this “probability”? And based on what? All that I have heard on this topic (and not just from Don) can be boiled down to four arguments.
(1) Doherty’s thesis is not probable because the vast majority of scholars would reject it, and have always rejected mythicism. (The argument from authority, of course.)
(2) Doherty’s heavenly Christ / sublunar crucifixion is not believable. (The argument from personal incredulity.)
(3) Occam’s Razor. (The argument from applying principles to practices where they don’t belong.)
(4) We’ve believed in an HJ for almost two millennia. How could we have been wrong?

Probability should be decided by an unbiased (let me repeat that: unbiased) evaluation of the evidence and arguments presented. Neither Don, nor Ehrman, nor McGrath can be styled unbiased.

And who was it said earlier that one or the other of Tacitus and Josephus could be dismissed, but that the other (whichever) had to be regarded as reliable? What principle of historiography or scientific research is this? Either Scientology or Mormonism is ridiculous, but hardly both? Either Zeus or Vishnu never existed, but hardly both?

And then I wonder why I get bad reviews!

Earl Doherty

judge

Earl theres more you seem to have forgotten.

The problem is that you have to deal with verses from Paul like from Romans...

1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— 2 the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3 regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life[flesh] was a descendant of David

and from Galatians

4:4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

*quotes from NIV

Earl is is a huge task to try to argue that these verse dont refer to an earthly, everyday man.
Full points for trying, but the problem is that whatever you say and however you try to argue that these verse dont refer to an everyday earthly man, they appear to, and nothing you done has overcome that.
Sure some people are convinced, but we live in a time when xtianity is accelerating its decline (in the west) and people are happy to find any excuse to discredit its traditional forms.
But we dont need to go through all the mental contortions your theory requires to reasonably point out the problems with traditional christianity.

All we end up doing IMHO is compromising those tools we have to help us to more reasonable views of life than those provided by traditional religion

mountainman

Is it a huge task to argue that Gandalf was an earthly, everyday man? Earl appears to be examining the structure of the myth behind the "mass-produced history". The authorship of the Greek NT has been in part consisted in the copy paste of material from a specific version of the "Christianized" Greek LXX. We know nothing about the authors, let alone the subject matters the authors deal with. And the authors themselves do not appear to be earthly, everyday men.

I think you should examine your evidence outside the NT for Jesus and/or the Books of the NT Canon and/or "The Nation of Christians" in the first century. We have the perfect vacuum in the first century. Eusebian testimony leaks in thereafter.

Steven Carr

I see GDon had to just ignore a straightforward question about what evidence there is for these people.

And he had to ignore the straightforward fact that mainstream scholars demand provenance for all works , except the Gospels, where double standards are used.

But if you ask an historicist for evidence, you will be met by silence.

Or in GDon's case, a simple claim that the Gospels must be history, because they were written within 50-60 years of the events they claim to be about.

This is not scholarship. This is 'The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it'.

As Professor Larry Hurtado would never say 'Provenance? We don't need no stinking provenance.'

Steven Carr

And a straight forward reading has Jesus in the Exodus....

A straight forward reading of Romans 10 means that Jews had never heard of Jesus until Christians were sent to preach about him.

A straight forward reading of Romans 13 is praise of the Roman authorities who hold no terror for the innocent.

There is no thought in Paul's mind of the Roman authorities crucifying, whipping, flogging, stripping,beating the Son of God.
3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

No Christian could write that and preach that the Romans had killed the Son of God.

This cannot be explained, which is why historicists never attempt an explanation of what Paul says.

Instead, they declare Paul to be silent - so that they no longer have to listen to him.

judge

Pete you have completely missed the point. Completely. I'm not arguing for an historical Jesus . I don't care whether there was or was not .
What I am saying is that Paul writes about an ordinary everyday man .
Let that soak in and re read my post please.