Amaleq13

Who said otherwise? Carrier agrees:

"Luke gives us another precise date when he sets the beginning of John's ministry to 28 A.D. (3.1), and this has caused some confusion, though for no good reason." (emphasis added)

Even if it is true (which I'm not certain is the case) this observation offers nothing substantive with regard to whether the opinion is credible. No matter how many times you appeal to the number of people believing a given conclusion, it will always be an example of the logical fallacy of an appeal to the majority.

What specific dating Carrier suggests do you find disputed by the majority of scholars?

It's "only" a problem if Luke's story is compared to the only other description of the birth of Jesus?

I think you've gotten confused. That is the date Luke gives to the beginning of John's ministry:

"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, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness."

Layman

Toto did. My response was that even Carrier does not think that Luke's reference created confusion.

I did. My apologies.

Which shows all the more why there is no confusion created by Luke's reference.

I'm really not up for yet another argument about the census of Luke, I've covered this ground in detail before here. It's enough to defeat Toto's point to show that Carrier does not think the specific time references provided by Luke are problematic.

Vinnie

LOL. Yeah, the Gospels really start with "onece upon a time in a land far ago...". They are filled with references to datable traditions. I cited 10-20 lines. Either refute the evidence I presented or drop this nonsense.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Didn't I already say this?
--->
"An exact chronology of Jesus' life and all the problems involved in such a reconstruction are a dime a dozen."

Its a difficult concept.

Paula Fredriksen argues that Jesus never claimed to be Messiah but during his life others started claiming him Messiah. Pilate, who knew Jesus and his followers were no threat, decided to quiet the crowds by having Jesus crucified. Something liek that anyways. Reconstructions of those like Crossan run into huge problems with the fact that only Jesus was crucified and his followers were not and they seemed to have settled in Jerusalem after his death....

I believe E.P. Sander's reconstruction validly accounts for all the relevant data as well though. Fredriksen discusses this at length in her book Jesus of Nazareth.

Vinnie

Vinnie

1) I meant it both ways.

2) When a poster posts such comments the discussion cannot get any less substantive

Vinnie

rlogan

You guys have made this tedious, but I'm not going to let you slip out of the net.

There is no date given for the crucifixion by any writer of the time. Nothing in the gospels. Nothing in the epistles. Nothing by historians or Church fathers even 100 years after.

Even today, historians are reduced to their best guess by inferring something from contradictory birth dates, a date for John the Baptists' ministry, counting passovers, and the like. There is a wide range of possible inferences - but not one citation of a date given by an early author.

Dates given by writers usually reference the year of reign for the authority at the time. I submit the following example from Josephus' Autobiography:

"This Matthias had a son called Matthias Curtus, and that in the first year of the government of Hyrcanus: his son's name was Joseph, born in the ninth year of the reign of Alexandra: his son Matthias was born in the tenth year of the reign of Archclaus; as was I born to Matthias in the first year of the reign of Caius Caesar."

Layman gave an example from the Bible. I noticed in his prefatory remark he left out the all important principle that it is not only a reference to the authority, but the year. His example showed the year being given though.

Repeat: Authors usually date things by year and reign. Now it is also true that you can find references to certain Events during a reign - like a war, for example to fix the time of a second event. Nonetheless, these kind of references anchor the item in question to something that gives no question as to the absolute historical date.

Doherty's thesis is upheld by a lack of date for the single most important event in all of Christianity. The crucifixion.

How can the proponents of the HJ defend themselves here? What is the excuse for no author dating the crucifixion in the manner of the time?

Please stop with the you can infer it approximately red herring.

I have seen no answer for this offered here. It has become quite tedious pinning the HJ crowd down to answering somthing that is really such a simple question.

Now, my "Wallflower" comment was in jest, and if it offended I happily retract it.

I anticipate one of the potential evasive responses: It's just as much a problem for Doherty. Can't date the myth.

Vinnie

The "bleeping" Gospels are not history books. Luke comes closest.

All four Gospels mentiion Pialte. This is datable based upon outside sources (26-26 IIRC).

The evidence is there. I presented it. Stop whining and deal with it.

Vinnie

rlogan

Such tedium. I'll try one more time, GD.

The HJ crowd keeps saying for various reasons Paul the Obscure and others would not have wanted to visit Calvary. Too embarrassing. Too awful. Too worried about the third coming.

If you believe these are the words of Paul, that all he wants to do is share in the suffering of Christ - then it follows he would want to visit Calvary. That is the pinnacle of Christs's suffering according to the Gospels.

The argument that it was too awful or embarrassing goes exactly against what Paul is saying. Those arguments must be abandoned unless some evidence can be submitted that trumps this quote from Paul.

rlogan

That's right, Vinnie. They aren't.

Also - the Historians like Josephus and also the Church fathers? No date. Why?

Spin has stated repeatedly that you presume to construct history from books that are not history, as you just admitted. You can't have it both ways. You have argued the other side of this while you were sneering at Toto:

There is a key point you are studiously avoiding. The crucifixion is not tied in to any event datable by outside source. "Pilate" is not an event (like a census, a war, etc.).

It is the singlemost defining event in all of Christianity. No Date.

I have noted what I will refer to as the "Vinnie Meter". The harder the point is to defend, the more the meter registers insult and dismissive language.

Luke gives a hopelessly garbled and impossible birth "history". Luke 1:5 refers to Herod as King, and this seems to agree with Matthew 2:1. But Herod died in either 4 B.C. or 5 B.C. Luke 2:2 Says Jesus was born when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria. But that didn't happen until ten years after Herod had died.

Moreover, although Matthew mentions Herod, he gives a mythical account of "the slaughter of the innocents".

So the fact is there is no date for Crucifixion. The only thing about the birth dates we can say is that they are nullified by each other as well as real history.

Sure, the authors tried for verisimilitude by glancing references to things that were real, much as novelists do.

Which supports Doherty.

mike_decock

[Mod Mode]

Can we cool the tone here a little bit? Pretty please?

[/Mod Mode]

Everybody has a different standard of expectation. Some consider an approximate date sufficient to establish historicity. Others will consider anything less than the date and hour to be insufficient.

In my opinion, those are subjective standards anyone has a right to hold. Deal with it.

-Mike...