Roger Pearse

No, there were not.

Indeed so.

No, he didn't.

This seems to be an attempt to force the data into shape.

Why should they? It hardly helps the mythicist argument, either way.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

lpetrich

Roger Pearse, that line of argument can be turned around against defenses of the TF. It's very out-of-character for someone who had a low opinion of similar sorts of prophets. One would expect him to have the view of Jesus Christ and early Xians that (say) Lucian of Samosata had had.

How is education supposed to make a difference?

If anything, one can learn about similarities between various mythologies. How is Jesus Christ being the son of a god and a virgin much different from Romulus being the son of a god and a virgin?

How would reading Virgil's Aeneid make a difference?

ynquirer

Why should Tacitus’ mention of Christus crucified by Pilate have any bearing on the Church’s debate with Marcion? Marcion accepted Jesus’ crucifixion as a historical fact. He only fancied that death thereof was deceptive – something Tacitus could not discern from afar.

The issue stands still: if the historical Jesus and his crucifixion were never questioned before the Enlightenment, why did the Christians forge Tacitus’ Annals 15:44?

Also, if the historical Jesus was not questioned until the Enlightenment, why did Eusebius interpolate the TF in a book authored by Josephus, who was a reputed historian rather than a mass-followed religious leader? Just for kidding? Or because he envisioned that it would become an issue and in order to delude ourselves, who discuss it seventeen hundred years later, more surely?

andrewcriddle

To clarify my point.

If developed narratives about Jesus being crucified by order of Pontius Pilate go back before 70 CE then they would be stories about events alleged to have occurred in the recent past.

The ancient narratives about Osiris, (are they really older than 3000 BCE ?), are stories about events alleged to have occurred in the distant past. They are prima-facie less likely to be based on actual historical events.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

How indeed.

Toto

Possibly for the same reason that Christians forged letters between Paul and Seneca, or between Jesus and King Abgar?

The forger does not seem to have been as concerned with showing that Jesus was historical as much as making other points - that Jews and Greeks followed him to this day.

Note also that Josephus is now regarded as a reputable historian, but in the first and second centuries, he was regarded as a traitor by the Jews.. He was esteemed by Christians because his worked showed the destruction of Jerusalem as God's judgment on the Jews.

Chaucer

Jay --

All the direct respondents to your question so far have taken it that by three arguments you mean lines of reasoning only. But is that really all you mean, or do you mean more? I note that in your own examples you supply not just three lines of reasoning but also cite three pieces of possible evidence as well. Do you want that as well in the responses? You haven't gotten that yet in any of them -- only possible lines of reasoning without any direct citations of possible evidence of the sort you submit here.

To the board: By pieces of possible evidence, I don't mean pieces of proof. I rather mean exactly what I say, PIECES OF POSSIBLE EVIDENCE. Now I know damn well that discussions like this invariably fall into dead-end incomprehension of "evidence" versus "proof" as if the two damn things were one and the same. Now, they bloody well aren't, of course. But if our lordly sensibilities around here are too bloody offended to stomach such an affrontery as the term "evidence" -- even when the term's being bloody well used exactly right -- then pray tell, how else for this "discussion" are we supposed to term a citation like the criminal's death of Jesus (cited by Jay here), or the Gospel of Thomas (cited by Jay here), or references to Capernaum (cited by Jay here)? If we're not allowed to term such a thing as a piece of possible evidence, how else do we term it instead? A datum? A possible factoid? An impossible factoid? A fart? A PIECE OF EIGHT?

WHAT?!

Yes, Jay, I do think there are three possible lines of argument that one could submit of the sort that you've submitted here. But like your three, mine also involve three possible pieces of evidence of the sort you've also submitted here. But I won't submit my three until I've received indemnity from most of the posters here for daring to use such excomunicationally apostate terms as "evidence" -- and using those terms correctly, thank you very much.

Chaucer

Toto

I agree to indemnify and hold harmless Chaucer against loss or threatened loss of income by reason of the liability or potential liability of Chaucer for or arising out of the use of the term "evidence."

gurugeorge

What "synoptic tradition" that might have existed before 70 CE? What gives you the right to slip the word "tradition" in here at this point?

Obviously texts that mention a historical figure from a certain period can't have been written before that period, but the mere presence of a known historical figure in a bit of writing doesn't, in itself, show that the texts are historical proof of another figure mentioned in the texts who lived around that time. It's just a total non sequitur - a "howler".

As to "anti-religious presupposition", well, it depends on what you mean by "religion". For nigh on 2,000 years people believed that there was a historical god-man, a one-shot, miracle-working avatar of the divine, walking this earth. There certainly was a religion based around that fantastic figure, and most people thought the NT texts were as good a proof as you could get of his historical existence. But if you are rational, while it is still open to you to believe such a figure existed, you can't reasonably say you have any rational backing for that position from the NT any more. It's just not strong enough.

Now, you MIGHT be able to show that while there wasn't a miracle-working god-man by the name of Joshua the Messiah walking this earth 2,000 years ago, there was some obscure human fellow called Joshua around whom the famous myth of the miracle-working god-man somehow accreted - and you might be able to have a religion around that fellow (e.g. if his teachings are wise, like the human Buddha figure - supposing you could extract what he really said from those texts).

But if you were to do so, that wouldn't be because there was any direct "historical proofiness" coming from the NT texts themselves any more, that you could take for granted and just blithely translate over to the hypothesised human being.

ALL THE PURPORTED "HISTORICAL PROOFINESS" SUPPOSEDLY INTERNAL TO THOSE TEXTS IS ATTACHED TO THE MIRACLE WORKING GODMAN.

If such an entity doesn't or can't exist, there's no "historical proofiness" that's automatically left over that you can then use to prove the existence of an honest-to-goodness human being by the same name.

The texts could be bloody ANYTHING for all you know. Jokes, satires, made-up religious myths, serious religious tracts about a purely visionary entity, entertainments, etc., etc. What they actually are has to be worked out before their evidentiary status can be established.

There's just a yawning chasm here that no rational argument can cross. Any "historical proofiness" for a historical man you suppose to exist in those texts has to be established from the ground up, from finding out the provenance of the texts, who wrote them, when, where, why, etc. THEN you might be able to say there's some evidence there - or not.

aa5874

You don't even know what you are talking about. Please read the Church writings.

You don't know what you are talking about.

Marcion's Phantom Jesus Christ was not an "HJ". The mere fact that Marcion preached that Jesus Christ was a Phantom must mean that he questioned the God/Man or human only Jesus,.

What are you talking about? Do you not understand the term "historical Jesus"?

Marcion's Jesus was not human at all. It was not born of any earthly parents. The non-human Jesus of Valentinus, Marcus and Basilides are recorded by the Church writers. The data is there for all to see.

"HJ" refers to an human ONLY Jesus.

Perhaps you don't understand the OP. If ALL Church writers agreed that Jesus was a God and also agreed that he was a God before he became a man, then using the writings of the Church to claim Jesus was just a man is absurd.

People who agreed that Jesus was a God or the son of a God did argue about whether Jesus had flesh and the nature of the flesh and if his flesh did exist.

His physical nature was uncertain. There was no doubt Jesus was Spirit in nature.

See "On the Flesh of Christ" by a Church writer under the name Tertullian.

Now, in what way does a claim that Jesus was both a God and a man, sprit and flesh, corruptible and incorruptible hurt a mythicist?

I am afraid you seem totally unaware of the mythicist's position.