Originally Posted by Michael Horner

The legends about Jesus that the critics are looking for do exist, but they arose in the second century, which is consistent with the two-generation time frame discovered by Professor Sherwin-White, when all the eye-witnesses had died off. Thus the trustworthiness of the Gospel account is highly probable because there just wasn't enough time for the mythical tendencies to creep in and then prevail over the historical fact.

Originally Posted by Dr. Richard Carrier

All else being equal, it is true that a real Jesus would be more probable than the rise of an unexplained legend of so uncommon a type in so short a time. But if a significant Argument from Silence (AfS) can be made, then all else is not equal. There would then be an increase in the probability of "an unexplained legend of so uncommon a type in so short a time," and enough of an increase can overcome the prior probability of a real Jesus.

How does one make a good AfS? Gilbert Garraghan explains:

"To be valid, the argument from silence must fulfill two conditions: the writer[s] whose silence is invoked in proof of the non-reality of an alleged fact, would certainly have known about it had it been a fact; [and] knowing it, he would under the circumstances certainly have made mention of it. When these two conditions are fulfilled, the argument from silence proves its point with moral certainty." (§ 149a)

This is a slam dunk AfS. But an AfS can be deployed that is relatively weaker to the extent that either condition is less certain. That is, it may only be "somewhat certain" that the relevant authors knew x and would mention it, and in this case the AfS only produces a less than "somewhat certain" conclusion. In general, based on the hypothesized entity itself, and in conjunction with everything we know on abundant, reliable evidence, should we expect to have evidence of that entity? If the answer is yes, and yet no such evidence appears, then an AfS is strong. If the answer is no, then it is weak.

But an AfS that gets this far can be made stronger if we can fulfill either of two more criteria. First, is the hypothesized entity the sort of thing, based on long experience with other examples of the same kind, that is easily arrived at by the human imagination even when not real? If the answer is yes, then an AfS gains strength. If no, then it actually loses strength. Second, does the hypothesized entity entail or include properties that we know on abundant, reliable evidence cannot or do not exist? If yes, then an AfS gains strength. If no, then it doesn't. Note that this second criterion does not rule out such claims. Rather, it only strengthens a preexisting doubt. Enough evidence can indeed confirm the seemingly impossible and prove it possible, but we are not considering a case where the evidence is strong or abundant.

Certainly, there is a General AfS to be made regarding Jesus. For many other famous men who walked the earth we know at least the titles of books that were written by and about them while they were still alive or very shortly after their deaths. Philosophers like Socrates, Epicurus, Chrysippus, or Musonius Rufus, leaders like Pericles, Ptolemy, Augustus, or Herod the Great, even holy men like Empedocles or Apollonius. All had things written about them in their own day, and wrote things themselves.

One could say that Jesus was an insignificant, illiterate, itinerant preacher with a tiny following, who went wholly unnoticed by any literate person in Judaea. However, this would not bode well for anyone who wished to maintain he was God, or did any of the more amazing things attributed to him. It is very implausible, for instance, that a biography would be written for the obscure itinerant philosopher Demonax in his own lifetime (by Lucian), yet God Incarnate, or a Great Miracle Worker who riled up all Judaea with talk, should inspire nothing like it until decades after his death. And though several historians wrote on Judaean affairs in the early 1st century (not just Josephus and Tacitus, but several others no longer extant), none apparently mentioned Jesus (see the Secular Web library on Historicity). Certainly, had anyone done so, the passages would probably have been lovingly preserved by 2nd century Christians, or else inspired angry rebuttals.

For instance, the attacks of Celsus, Hierocles, and Porphyry, though destroyed by Christians and thus no longer extant (another example of the peculiar problem of Christian history discussed above), nevertheless remain attested in the defenses written by Origen, Eusebius, and Macerius Magnes. But no earlier attacks are attested. There is no mention of Christians in Plutarch's attack On Superstition, nor a rebuttal to any attack on Christianity in Seneca's lost work On Superstition (which ruthlessly attacked pagans and Jews, as attested in book 10 of Augustine's City of God), so it seems evident Christians got no mention even there, in a text against alien cults, by a man who would have witnessed the Neronian persecution of 64 A.D. (alternatively, the fact that this is the only work of Seneca's not to be preserved, despite the fact that Christians must surely have been keen to preserve an anti-pagan text by a renowned pagan, might mean it contained some damning anti-Christian material and was suppressed, though Augustine clearly had access to the work and says nothing about such content). All of this suggests a troubling dichotomy for believers: either Jesus was a nobody (and therefore not even special, much less the Son of God) or he did not exist.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...suspuzzle.html

[...]

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...er_horner.html

Comments please

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Comments please

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

Consdiering the commincations of the day and the level of education/belief in the mystical people were primed for myths.

Nursing someone back to health becomes Lazurus back from the dead as the tale is told and retold. Christ's audience was the Jews for whom their faith had a mystic/occult element to begin with.

We see it today. There are many people who swear humans can levitate but have never seen it. Consider crop circkes. And we are more scientifc and rational culturaly than ever before.

People want to believe some mystical or ET source for building the pyramids.

People see the virgin Mary in a plate of spaghetti.

The modern list is long.

In the NT days, myths could spring up quickly by word of mouth. The region was physicaly small. Consider the degress of separation concept in modern society.