Anduin

No it doesn't:

http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/jesusnarr.html

one allegiance

Hey guys, first I would like to apologize to whoever I offended with any of my posts. You all seem pretty annoyed by me so I would just like to say that I'm not here to call any of you ignorant...I'm just simply trying to defend my position with logic. Before I try and formulate a more sufficient argument, since none of you apparently find my argument convincing, I would like to say that the Gospels ARE a big part of proving Jesus and they DO coincide with other historical texts. If I have to start from the Gospels then I will do so. There is no use in regurgitating everything I already said or stuff that this site says about the reliability of the Gospels. Peruse over it if you like and then post to what you object to...maybe I can make some clarifications.

http://www.carm.org/questions/Jesus_myth.htm

Diogenes the Cynic

one allegiance, it's generally considered bad form around here to try to make arguments by simply linking to other websites. Linking to sources is fine (and indeed encouraged) to support a particular point you're trying to make, but a link absent any argument of your own is not going to draw much response. We've all seen these kinds of sites before many times. We know the standard apologies and we know the rebuttals but few, if any of us have the inclination to go about rebutting an entire website.

Please try your arguments one at a time. Pick something from your linked site which you believe is particularly strong. Summarize it here and we'll have at it.

Aethernaut

Just because you say it, doesn't make it so.

One continuity error you've now ignored twice will show you exactly how unreliable the New Testament is in documenting history and why external, contemporary histories are so important. It's even specifically related to the crucifixion (crucifiction? ) story. For the third time, enlighten us one allegiance...

Exactly how did Judas die?

Zucco

Hey, I saw that too. It was called The Exorcist. :devil3:

funinspace

Sure, here's a point that I see a problem with from http://www.carm.org/questions/Jesus_myth.htm
First the mainstream Christian view is that Mark was written by 60 AD, not 50AD. Why should a skeptic take the Fundamentalist view of Mark's authorship. Secondly, 30 or 40 years is plenty of time of mythological or embellishments to happen. Or do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God? His fantasies were built up in his lifetime, never mind 30-40 years. This is just one example, and it comes in a day of relatively modern communications and record keeping. Yet, this new religion flourished and grew despite death and persecution. One wants to argue that such embellishment that happened less than 200 years ago, could not have happened 2,000 years ago?

one allegiance

Deal.

Many speculate that the Gospels aren't reliable historically. I'm going to present a coulple of points about why the Gospels can be seen as historically reliant evidence of the existence of Jesus.

Validity through date.

In the Gospels Jesus prophesied many things. The one thing that I want to draw attention to is the prophesy of the destruction of "Herods Temple". "And Jesus went out, and departed from the Temple: and His disciples came to Him for to shew Him the buildings of the Temple. And Jesus said unto them, "See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." (Matthew 24:1-2 KJV). About 40 years later, what Jesus had prophesied came true, and the temple was destroyed. But the very act of this prophesy being fulfilled is not even the main point. The main point is that NONE of the gospels make mention of the destruction of the temple, which was and is a well known historical event that happened in 70 A.D. The gospels would have surely made mention of this if they were written or altered after this time. The fall of Jerusalem would have been metioned. It would have just been more evidence that Jesus was who he said he was. The book of Acts, which is a history of the Christian church, doesn't mention the fall of Jerusalem either, nor does it record the deaths of Paul, James, and Peter which all happened in the early 60's. This means that Acts was written at least by A.D. 62 and Luke was written before that. Therefore, the time between the events and the writings is around 30 years. Noted Oxford expert on literature and myths, C. S. Lewis, the Oxford expert on literature and myths, said, "I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this [the Gospels]." Regarding the gospel of Mark. "A date before a.d. 50 leaves no time for mythological embellishment of the records. They would have to be accepted as historical."

Also, b/c the writings were within 30 years this would mean that the Gospels had been veiwed by other eyewitness, not necessarily diciples or Christians, but still there were no changes made to the writings. We have absolutely no corrective or contradictory writings from that time, from anyone, denying the accounts of the gospels. If we had...they would have certainly diminished the Gospels right then, b/c a majority of the people hated Christians. The corrective documents would have smothered Christianity.

Content

Now that we can truly see that the Gospels were written when they say they were let's look at content. First off, this is not how myths are made. This is how you uncover evidence and record it. I proved above that they were written in the assumed time period which would validate all of the observations and historical markings that were stated during this time. Take this for example. In Luke 2:1-2, we have historically verifiable information: "Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. 2This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria." Also, see Luke 3:1-2, "Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, 2in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness." Here are more events metioned in the Gospels that agree with archaeology:
-Herod, king of Judea, (Matt. 14:1; Luke 1:5).
-Herodias, the wife of Herod's brother Philip, (Matt. 14:3).
-Pool of Bethesda, (John 5:115).
-Pool of Siloam, (John 9:7).
So we see that what was noted during that time can also validate the Gospels. And we have already proved that the Gospels weren't written after these events. William Ramsey, a 20th century archaeologists says "There was accurate metion of 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 islands", he made no mistakes! Sir William Ramsey was a classical scholar and archaeologist. He taught at Oxford England, Aberdeen. He authored several scholarly books dealing with archaeology and had a major influence upon it as a science.

Accurate translation

A very controversial issue is whether or not the Gospels have been accurately transmitted from the original writings down to the copies that we have today. The truth is that the New Testament documents are 99.5% textually pure. This means that only 1/2 of 1% of all the documents, of all the copies in existence has any question about the text. Nevertheless, the accuracy is really even greater than 99.5%. The reason is because many of the copies that have spelling errors, minor word omissions and additions are copied, and those copies contains those various minor errors. All that is needed is to look at an older copy that all of them and the error is cleared up. Therefore, we can easily know what the original said. Here is a table from the site of the works we have today, but do NOT have the original texts.

Plato - 1.) 427-347 B.C. 2.) 900 A.D.

Caesar - 1.) 100-44 B.C. 2.) 900 A.D.

Aristotle- 1.) 384-322 B.C. 2.) 1100 A.D.

Homer - 1.) 900 B.C. 2.) 400 B.C.

New Testament -1.) 50-100 A.D. 2.) 130 A.D.

1) is date it was written

2) is date of earliest copy

I hope you consider this evidence. It is the first step toward the task at hand.

one allegiance

Sure. I'm not ignoring you..I've just been busy. I didn't know that this was that big of an issue, if anything it is one of the most least seemingly contradictory questions for contemporary discussion.

Both accounts are true. Apparently Judas first hanged himself. Then, at some point, the rope either broke or loosened so that his body slipped from it and fell to the rocks below and burst open. Some even say that it was b/c he didn't know how to tie a noose, but it could have been many other reasons. Remember, he did turn Jesus in to the authorities, and was foreshadowed a painful death. Neither account alone is complete but it isn't contradictory in any fashion.

cjack

So we've effectively abandoned the "extra-Biblical" part and are now simply going to go around and around about the Gospels...again.

:banghead:

Iasion

This page lists : Tacitus, PlinyY, Josephus, Talmud, Lucian :


TACITUS (c.112CE)

Roughly 80 years after the alleged events (and 40 years after the war) Tacitus allegedly wrote a (now) famous passage about "Christ" - this passage has several problems however:
* Tacitus uses the term "procurator", used in his later times, but not correct for the actual period, when "prefect" was used.
* Tacitus names the person as "Christ", when Roman records could not possibly have used this name (it would have been "Jesus, son of Joseph" or similar.)
* Tacitus accepts the recent advent of Christianity, which was against Roman practice (to only allow ancient and accepted cults and religions.)
* This passage is paraphrased by Sulpicius Severus in the 5th century without attributing it to Tacitus, and may have been inserted back into Tacitus from this work.

This evidence speaks AGAINST it being based on any Roman records -
but
merely a few details which Tacitus gathered from Christian stories circulating in his time (c.f. Pliny.)
So,
this passage is NOT evidence for Jesus,
it's just evidence for 2nd century Christian stories about Jesus.
http://oll.libertyfund.org/ToC/0067.php


PLINY the Younger (c.112CE)

About 80 years after the alleged events, (and over 40 years after the war) Pliny referred to Christians who worshipped a "Christ" as a god, but there is no reference to a historical Jesus or Gospel events.
So,
Pliny is not evidence for a historical Jesus of Nazareth,
just evidence for 2nd century Christians who worshipped a Christ.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/pliny.html


JOSEPHUS (c.96CE)

The famous Testamonium Flavianum in the Antiquities of the Jews is considered probably the best evidence for Jesus, yet it has some serious problems :
* the T.F. as it stands uses clearly Christian phrases and names Christ as Messiah, it could not possibly have been written by the Jew Josephus (who remained a Jew and refused to call anyone "messiah" in his book which was partly about how false messiahs kept leading Israel astray.),
* The T.F. comes in several versions of various ages,
* The T.F. was not mentioned by any of the early CHurch fathers were reviewed Josephus. Origen even says Josephus does NOT call Jesus the Messiah, showing the passage was not present in that earlier era.
* The T.F. first showed up in manuscripts of Eusebius, and was still absent from some manuscripts as late as 8th century.
* (The other tiny passage in Josephus is probably a later interpolation.)
An analysis of Josephus can be found here:
http://www.humanists.net/jesuspuzzle/supp10.htm

In short - this passage is possibly a total forgery (or at best a corrupt form of a lost original.)
But, yes,
it COULD just be actual evidence for Jesus - late, corrupt, controversial but just POSSIBLY real historical evidence.


TALMUD (3rd C. and later)

There are some possible references in the Talmud, but:
* these references are from 3rd century or later, and seem to be (unfriendly) Jewish responses to Christian claims.
* the references are highly variant, have many cryptic names for Jesus, and very different to the Gospel stories (e.g. has "Jesus" born about 100BC, or the bastard son of a Roman soldier, or stoned to death in Lydda.)
So,
the Talmud contains NO evidence for Jesus,
the Talmud merely has much later Jewish responses to the Gospel stories.


LUCIAN (c.170CE)

Nearly one-and-a-half CENTURIES after the alleged events, Lucian satirised Christians, but :
* this was several generations later,
* Lucian does NOT even mention Jesus or Christ by name.
So,
Lucian is no evidence for a historical Jesus, merely late 2nd century lampooning of Christians.


Iasion