AtheistGamer

How do we know that Ceasar wrote his commentaries on the gallic wars? Gallic wars refers to Ceasar in the third person, and usually if a writing is refering to someone in the third person that means it was not written by the person that it is refering to.

I'm assuming that there must be some difference between the evidence for authorship of gallic wars, and the evidence for the authorship of the canonical gospels (three of which refer to their "authors" in the third person.

Toto

In classical times, it was a convention for the author to refer to himself in the third person. From Vernon Robbin's paper

Toto

De Bello Gallico

more indicationsFor the gospels, we have no such indications. The names of the authors were attached well after they were written, and were based on speculation by later commentators. For example, "Luke" writes in the first person, but never identifies himself. The name was attached to the gospel after Irenaeus scoured Paul's letters, and found a likely candidate who could have been Paul's traveling companion in Acts.

stephan huller

I have heard that argument before and I am not sure I buy it. In Life Josephus speaks entirely in the first person but in the Jewish War it 'morphs' into the third person with the admission that the text had certain 'helpers' develop the original hypomnema into a finished product.

The Marcionites denied that any disciple ever wrote a gospel. This means they denied the authorship of Matthew and John by the people claimed to be the authors (Adamantius Dialogues). I don't think any ancient text was preserved in its original form. There were editors constantly reworking and 'correcting' what was originally preserved.

The greatest single difficulty I have with Christianity is why the messiah did not write the gospel. This was so obviously a part of the original Jewish messianic expectation (i.e. to be 'like Moses') it is difficult to imagine the movement getting off the ground without the introduction of a New Torah.

I suspect of course that the Christ did indeed write the gospel (as the Marcionites claimed) and then the authorship of subsequent texts were assigned to 'titles' associated with that individual. After all the Marcionite title of the gospel was according to von Harnack 'the Gospel of Christ.' The titles of the individual gospels are simply written at the top of the pages of each text by some individual subsequent to its original publication. There would be no way of knowing that 'according to Mark' was written by someone named Mark or 'according to John' by John without these second hand attributions.

Roger Pearse

Surely we do exactly what we do for Caesar, and we find ancient sources that tell us about the authorship. We also look at the manuscripts transmitted to us, and see what they say, just as we do for these works.

(I can't follow the logic of Vossius' claim -- anyone?)

I don't see how any of this relates to the point made, tho. These are reasons why we should ignore the testimony, none based on evidence. But I suspect precisely the same arguments could be made of any text we found inconvenient.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

mountainman

The earlier JC also authored coins from his mints. Perhaps he also has various inscriptions? IDK. But the corroboration of evidence outside the manuscript tradition is very generous to the earlier JC, but exceedingly shadowy and reticent for the later JC, setting aside the "Shroud" and the "James Ossuary" and other manifest forgeries. These coins, for example, at least substantiate weighting the historicity of the earlier JC. JC must have some historicity to ask the question how do we know he wrote his commentaries, and he appears to have this. Granted he was historical, whether he authored the commentaries under his name becomes the question. What does the evidence say?

Shazbat

Probably because he exaggerates quite a bit and does seem to agrandize the author somewhat.

All signs of an autobiography rather than a biography.

Doug Shaver

Maybe we don't.

When somebody tells me I'll burn in hell if I doubt he wrote them, then maybe I'll worry about it. Or maybe not even then.

dockeen

But what if offers of perpetual virgins if you believe pops up.

Minimalist

I was astounded the other day to see where even a scholar of Ehrman's standing committed the "we have as much evidence for jesus as we do for Julius Caesar" absurdity.

What it is with religion that turns apparently intelligent people into lunatics?