GakuseiDon

I'm not sure if Alvin Boyd Kuhn fits the bill. Kuhn believed that Pilate's name was a transliteration error for "pontos piletos", meaning "dense sea". So "Christ suffered under Pilate" was originally "This aeon (Christ) suffered under a dense sea (matter)". But whether he felt Pilate himself was historical or not is difficult to determine. Anyway, according to Kuhn:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...2818/kuhn.html

"To strengthen this inference, already well grounded on comparative religion studies, is the additional fact that the same red dragon, or evil serpent of the lower nature in man, is in the Egyptian myths the monster Apap (Apep, Apepi) whose other name is found to be the Herut reptile! When also the name for the "dense sea" (of matter) under which the Christ aeon was said to suffer in its incarnation is seen appearing in old creedal formulae as the Greek pontos piletos, and we have thus the entirely non-historical origins of "Pontius Pilate" along with "Herod" in the Gospel framework, there is a clear challenge to the upholders of the historicity of the Gospels to explain how these two names, the one threatening the Christos in its infancy, the other carrying him to his death, have found their way into the story in precisely the same place, role and character as the two non-historical elements of the names!"

Note that he regarded Herod as historical.

(ETA) Some more by Kuhn on "pontos piletos":
http://www.theosophical.ca/RedSea.htm

"Perhaps the future stability of the edifice of the Christian religion may be severely shaken from the startling revelation that the Greek word for "sea" is pontos, and for "dense" is piletos, which would take the form in Latin of "Pontius Pilate." We can only ask: can this etymology be the origin of the creed's phrase: "He suffered under Pontius Pilate?"

EarlDoherty

Well, “Solitary Man” (no wonder!) did not come back with anything one couldn’t have expected. Most of it was scorn, and of a pretty juvenile kind. <edit> The rest of it made little or no inroads that I could see against my basic arguments, which were pretty mild, but of course not even that could be allowed. None of it bore the mark of professional scholarship, nor—more importantly—of simple civility and normal courtesy and respect for other viewpoints. His response and his tone was as much an attack on me as on my ideas. What is this board about? A mud pit for wrestling? Or are we supposedly here to put forward ideas, weigh them with some degree of maturity in a spirit of inquiry, and observe certain basic standards of civilized discourse?

I guess we know which option SM has adopted. Perhaps he just has a need to get down in the mud. But I’ve asked this question before, and I’ll ask it again—though I never do get an answer. Why is it that the self-proclaimed agnostics or atheists show the most vicious and arrogant response to Jesus mythicism? What do they find so threatening about it? What makes them so hostile and unforgiving toward anyone who would dare to question Jesus’ existence, a simple historical question and legitimate area of research? Don’t give me any crap about intellectual integrity or a concern for it. If they had any of the latter, they wouldn’t be behaving as they do. Would they react the same way toward a questioning of Confucius’ existence, or of Socrates, or Quetzalcoatl? I very much doubt it. So why Jesus, for an atheist or agnostic? If there is no personal threat to their beliefs, why do they behave like… (well, I’d better leave that blank, so as not to raise the ire of any moderator.)

And don’t give me any crap about mythicism being utterly bankrupt of honesty, decent argument or integrity of its own. (If anything, the history of this forum has demonstrated the farcicality of such a claim.) No line of scholarship remains alive for over two centuries or has gained the traction that mythicism has if it is as utterly bereft of merit as people like SM and JG and a few others here like to claim. So I ask again, what is the motivation?

Like I said, I don’t expect an answer, or at least an honest one. And every time I poke my nose onto this board, I swear again that I will never come back, since it usually seems to prove a colossal waste of time and I am not a masochist. Not that I don’t learn here, I’ve learned a lot. There are a lot of very knowledgeable people here, with good ideas. (My second edition of The Jesus Puzzle will reflect that, as I am adding and engaging with the views of quite a few Internet scholars, including some who frequent this board, to those of mainstream academia. This whole scene has become a legitimate and fruitful ‘community’ of scholarship.) But those ideas I can learn simply as an observer, although being a participant should be of greater advantage, for all concerned.

Anyway, I’ve said my piece and will be returning to my saner, and more productive, world. Hopefully, within a few days I will post on my website a very exhaustive study of the Jesus references in Josephus (close to 35,000 words long), with quite a few new ideas, which I’m sure will prove of some interest. Most of it will go into the second edition.

Earl Doherty

Toto

Kuhn was not a skeptic as we understand the term. He was a noted Theosophist, for whom myth would have been a higher reality in any case.

aa5874

What was the stature of Tacitus? Why would anyone hide from Tacitus?

Now, if you read the "Life of Tiberius", a contemporary of the supposed Jesus, you will see that if a Roman governor came to the home a Christian, it would NOT be certain death.

If you belonged to a foregn cult, or practised beliefs similar to the Jews, you were either banished from the city, put in the army at some desolate place or put into slavery for life.

The Life of Tiberius by Suetonius So based on Suetonius, the followers of foreign cults were not executed or crucified.

It would appear that Christus was involved in some military group, violent mob, or uprising, to have suffered the extreme penalty.

Life of Tiberius The Jesus of the NT did not have any problems with the Romans, he paid his taxes and asked his followers to do the same and that they should give due respect to the Roman authorities. And if the Jews did not claim Jesus was a blasphemer, Pilate would have not any reason to have a trial.

Pilate found no fault with Jesus and even offered to release Jesus, and further Jesus was not crucified to stop Christianity by Pilate, he was crucified for blasphemy.

It appears that Christus in Annals is not Jesus of the NT.




Aside from that, the textual evidence totally supports the good possibility that he used Roman records, and there is not a shred of evidence in the text that says he may have used hearsay.

That's the truth. There's just no evidence at all for hearsay.[/QUOTE]

GakuseiDon

Ah, I thought you meant "skeptic with regards to Pilate's existence". Sorry, my mistake.

mens_sana

Stark does give general numbers in century (half-century?) increments, and I think he has a decent, approximate approach. But he also has a major problem. His figures are based on a single orthodox church. At no point does he take into consideration what a plethora of early "Christian" cults do to this growth of the orthodox church.

Toto

Stark has a number of problems, but at least he shows his work. His most important point for this discussion is that he demonstrates that a small beginning and a moderate growth rate are sufficient to account for the size of Christianity by the time of Constantine.

Toto

The original charge was that liberal skeptical scholars disputed Pilate's existence until the discovery of the archeological evidence. Kuhn does not fit into that category, and it is not clear that he was skeptical of Pilate's existence. From the quotes that you gave, it appears that he might simply be explaining the appearance of Pilate in the gospels as a function of the wordplay or hidden meanings of his name. That does not require that he believe Pilate to be fictional.

Toto

This thread is a mess, and we are short on mods.

I have split off some posts that did not seem helpful here.

patcleaver

Solitary Man,

Aside from personality conflicts with certain JMs, why are you so hostile to the intellectual position/belief that Jesus is a myth or Jesus is fiction?

After all the default position is that an entity should not be believed to exist until it is proven to exist. Jesus is a myth or Jesus is fiction is just the negative proposition that should be believed until there is sufficient evidence to prove the positive position that Jesus is historical. Surely even you would agree that with respect to the magical Jesus of Christianity, that he is myth or fiction.

Are you aware of some evidence for the existence of historical Jesus that you might think that I am not aware of? Could you share it?