angelo

Have you ever tried to find references to an HISTORICAL Jesus outside the gospels ? Or the whole N/T for that matter ? from the various historians of the time ? You will find a plethora of references of christians, not Jesus, apart from the suspect ones.

I have read many books written about that period of time in Palestine and the Roman world in general. Many years ago, and the thing that sticks in my mind is the total lack of references to any historical Jesus. Sure there's references to christians, but no Jesus.
Don't ask for which books, because I can not recall most of them. I can only recall ''The Rise and Fall Of The Roman Empire'' .

Chris Weimer

I disagree that Tacitus is suspect.

Well, we have two in Josephus. One is certainly interpolated, while the other doesn't appear to be. Tacitus, Pliny, and then there's tons of non-new Testament Christian works. Why people overlook these I am at a loss.

JoeWallack

JW:
Still waiting for any Christian or Christian familiar here to present an argument that the Passion is plausible. Based on serious doubts presented here as to supposed details provided by "Mark" in the supposed Passion, such as Barabbas, there needs to be serious Minimizing of a Plausible Passion. Even if you reduce it though to a Jesus, Teacher/Healer, was crucified, you need to answer how a Peaceful character would plausibly have gotten crucifed and left his Peaceful followers to Peacefully promote him in Jerusalem. This is the Internet Infidels Forum and this is the Is the Passion account plausible? This would be the place to do it. If I don't hear any argument now that the Passion account is plausible I and Stephen Colbert will assume that you agree it is not and that I am running for President of SBL this year.

Possibly the foremost Christian Bible scholar promoting that "Mark" discredited Peter is Ted Weeden. Weeden is a genuine Believer though and so believes that "Mark's" discrediting of Peter is Fiction. This is exactly the Type of Bible scholar that we need to convince Christianity that "Mark" intended to discredit Peter because he is the Closest such Bible scholar to Believing Christians and therefore will have the most credibility with them (as opposed to a Skeptic also arguing that "Mark" intended to discredit Peter). Weeden thinks he can afford to demonstrate that "Mark" discredited Peter because he thinks all the other Christian writings indicate that "Mark's" discrediting is Fiction.

This is also the exact same situs Hawkins was in when he wrote Horae Synopticae, proving the priority of "Mark". As a Believer he thought that all the other Christian writings were enough to support Christian Assertians not in "Mark" and he could afford to demonstrate Markan priority. Current Christian Bible scholarship now accepts that "Mark" was first but is starting to doubt the Assertians of other Christian writings where they contradict "Mark". The same thing is going to happen with "Mark's" discrediting of Peter.

In the following Newsgroup, run by Jeffrey Gibson (how Ironic is that), Weeden presents his argument that "Mark's" Peter's Denial is Fiction:

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/g...26/000216.html

Weeden's major points:

1) No evidence prior to "Mark" that Peter denied Jesus.

-----1) Q

-----2) Paul

-----3) GThomas

2) No evidence of Peter Apology in Christian Canon

3) "Mark's" major theme of Discrediting Peter



Joseph

STORY, n.
A narrative, commonly untrue. The truth of the stories here following has, however, not been successfully impeached

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

angelo

Pliny, the governor of Bithyania in Asia Minor, wrote a very short passage to the Empoeror Trajan in 112 ce requesting clarification on how to deal with troublesome christians. Nothing about Jesus. Tacitus sheds no new light into the myth. He refers to Pilate as the ''procurator'' of Judea when in fact he was a prefect, So Tacitus is clearly not returning to the records of the time but quoting hearsay from his own day when the myth had by then taken hold. No historicity there.

aa5874

Philo of Alexandria extant writings make no mention whatsoever of a Christ during the days of Pontius Pilate. And the passage in Antiquities of Jews, 20.9.1 becomes ambiguous without the interpolated TF.

Chris Weimer

LOL. Way to oversimplify and misrepresent...again. What's the possibility that procurator was actually misunderstood for prefect?

angelo

If he was capable of misunderstanding prefect for procurator, he is also capable of misunderstading the Jesus myth which was more than likely a hearsay by the time he put quill to paper. There were at least 30 pagan writers who wrote at or within a century of the life of Jesus. Not one makes any reference to a Jesus of Nazareth.

Chris Weimer

If who misunderstood? I wasn't referring to Tacitus misunderstanding. BTW - nice logical fallacy there. "Do you understand perfectly quantum mechanics? No? Then you are also capable of misunderstanding such and such..."

Unless you can show that Tacitus misunderstood the Jesus story, mistaking it for history instead of myth, you have no leg to stand on.

Read up on the issues instead of making uninformed statements.

angelo

Tacitus wrote sometime in the first century. a good 100 years after Jesus was supposed to have died. Pray tell, how could he possibley have the historical facts in front of him.? You prove to me that he was writing historical facts and not hearsay. He wasn't born till 55c and died in 117ce. A long time after Jesus lived, would you not agree?

dog-on

Christus? Looks like Tacitus may have been a little confused, or just used a bad source... oh wait!...