ynquirer

Hardly so. Letters between Paul and Seneca do, while Tacitus does not, show admiration of a pagan toward a Christian. And still more unfortunate a comparison is with the correspondence between Jesus and an alleged converted, as the letters show King Abgar to be.

No, there is no the same reason to forge a neutral depiction of facts, as Annals 15:44 looks like. Does it not?

The TF might otherwise be construed to show that the wicked, principal men among the Jews provoked a division of the Jewish people that lasted until this day.

Both things are not incompatible. Actually, both seem to be true nowadays – the Jews now regard Josephus as altogether a traitor and as a rule a reliable historian – and there is no reason to suppose that in the forth century it was any different.

That is true, but it says nothing of the reasons of Eusebius to forge the TF.

Roger Pearse

lpetrich

Roger Pearse, that's not a good answer. What is one supposed to learn when one gets what you consider a proper education?

spin

This is what I find fascinating about you, Roger. You don't mind showing your love of your fellow human beings by insulting anyone who doesn't hold your beliefs. And you seem to take every occasion to insult as wide an audience as you can.


spin

Civil1z@tion

Icelandic historian Snorri Sturluson did this to the Norse Gods as well. He actually went pretty in depth to Norse myths to try and produce some reasonable sounding historical sequence of events which mutated into the Norse panetheon. Its really quite fascinating (but completely unsupported).

As to the OP, I think the best evidence for a historical Jesus is as follows:

1. The consistent agreement of early Christians Jesus as a founder (in this case it doesn't matter whether people believed Jesus was a real person or not, the tight focus on a charismatic founder implies that there probably was one).

2. The commoness of charismatic founders in religion (from Buddha and Confuscius to Mohammed and Abraham, it should not be considered implausible that a charismatic figure would found a major religion given how often it has happened).

3. The large number of apocalyptic/reformist "prophets" in 1st century Judea (there is no reason that one of them couldn't have been Jesus).

A charismatic and historical man, probably named Jesus, is the simplest explanation for Christianity's existence. Other explanations need large numbers of liars and people planting evidence over centuries. How is that more plausible than simply the idea that a charismatic preacher started the Christian religion?

ApostateAbe

Just about everyone knows my evidence for the historical Jesus by now, but I will repeat them for the record. Some people in this thread think it is all about argument from authority or ad hominem arguments, but it is not.

1. Paul's writings of meeting James, the brother of Jesus, and Cephas, also known as the Apostle Peter, in the letter to the Galatians.
2. The apocalyptic prophecies in the synoptic gospels, expected of a human cult leader but not expected of a myth.
3. The historical pattern of religions, seemingly matching Christianity, being started by living human leaders who are then glorified in religious myth.

I would not limit myself to those three items. I also take into strong consideration:

4. The complete lack of debate in antiquity, either inside the religion or from the outside, about the seeming human existence of Jesus.
5. The historical background details surrounding Jesus that the gospels apparently got correct (especially the existence of the otherwise-unknown town of Nazareth).

None of this may be evidence to the skeptics--they may find the ad hoc explanations for these things equally likely, or they may dismiss all probability estimates as merely subjective. But, I think the key point is that it is the best explanation that we have, for those who can comfortably make judgments of probability. If there was a detailed theory of the beginnings of Christianity with a non-historical Jesus that fits the evidence better than the standard theories of the historical Jesus, then that is what we should accept. A merely mythical Jesus should not be the "default" position (nor should a historical Jesus).

lpetrich

That strikes me as a rather circular argument. One ought to study movements whose origins are much better documented.

In any case, there are lots of people considered historical in previous centuries whose existence is now thought doubtful -- at best.

Was there a historical Homer? A historical Aesop? A historical Ebion? A historical Romulus? Etc.

That's certainly a possibility.

What massive lying is necessary? Especially considering how strong will to believe can be.


It's "the brother of the lord" - Earl Doherty has argued that that is some kind of title.

Such prophecies could be referring to some sort-of god.

You ought to take a closer look some time -- lots of movements don't have charismatic founder figures.

Not a very good argument. People in antiquity believed in the existence of people whose historicity we now consider dubious at best. Romulus, Homer, Aesop, Ebion, ... In fact, a popular theory of the nature of gods was euhemerism, that they were originally human heroes.

Even early Xians often believed in euhemerism rather than deny the existence of the pagan gods.

spin

Was there any debate over the human existence of Ebion? Naaa.


Oh, my god, Abe, have you not learned a damned thing while you've been trying to justify your beliefs about history?

Those kiddies at Dawkins net were bending over backwards trying to justify this stupidity about Nazareth. It was based, as I showed, on pure ignorance. They might have gone back to the same stupidity after I hit the road, but that has nothing to do with logic or evidence. This is one of the silliest arguments I've seen you dare put forward. It's probably worse than the crap about embarrassment.

If you really and truly want to point to Nazareth tell me why it is always spelled wrongly in Greek.


spin

aa5874

1.The mention of James, and Cephas/Peter can only be tentative evidence or information for James and Cephas/Peter. The existence or non-existence of James or Cephas/Peter cannot even begin to confirm that Jesus was a human being.

And, further the historicity of James and Cephas/Peter is not even certain.

2. But, you do not even know when those supposed apocalyptic prophecies were written. You must first assume that Jesus did exist and made predictions and then, in circular mode, use your assumptions to claim Jesus was human.

3. There is no credible information that a human Jesus was the first to start a christian sect and the the word "Christian" was irrelevant to and predated Jesus. And further, it cannot be shown that there would have been no christians without a human character called Jesus.

4. It is blatantly erroneous that there was a complete lack of debate about a human Jesus when writers under the names of Justin Martyr, Irenarus, Tertullian and others wrote about Marcion and his Phantom Jesus.

A writer called Tertullian even wrote a book called "Against Marcion" where he tried to refute Marcion's Phantom Jesus.

And this is Tertullian writing about the DEBATE in "On the Flesh Of Christ"1.

You appear to be completely wrong. The "Flesh of Jesus" was probably one of the biggest debate among people who were called Christians. Marcion Valentinus and Apelles did dispute that Jesus was human according to the writer called Tertullian.

5. What historical background details were correct? Surely you do not mean the conception through the Holy Ghost, the walking on water, the transfiguration, the resurrection and ascension?

Now, you cannot first assume that Jesus was from Nazareth and then claim that your assumption is historical because it is in the Bible. You appear to believe you assumptions are inerrant.

Why do you assume that your guesses are the best? Any guess is as good as another.


But, it is the DETAILED information provided by the Church writers, the teachings of the so-called heretics and the NT that depict Jesus as a mythological non-human entity. The Mythicist did not write Matthew 1.18 or Luke 1.35, John 1, Mark 16.6, Acts 1, Galatians 1 or the doctrine of Marcion and Valentinus.

There was no need for the mythicist to guess the description of Jesus in the NT and there are even more mythological atrributes in the teachings of Marcion, Valentius, Apelles, Basilides and Marcus.

You just have provided no-good arguments for your historical Jesus.

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Interesting answers from everybody. Thanks.
I'll respond as best I can to some of them as time permits.

Hi Chaucer,

I actually wanted to see if there was a consensus on what lines of argument for an historical Jesus people felt were strongest. Presenting textual or other support with the line of reasoning is helpful.

Once, we find the best arguments, we might be able to find decision procedures to determine what would make the arguments more or less convincing.

Please feel free to put forward any ideas you might have.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay