Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Johnny Skeptic · 07-21-2010, 11:48 AM

It is doubtful that more than a relative handful of Jews accepted Jesus in the first century A.D. In the book "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that in 100 A.D., there were only 7,530 Christians in the entire world. Regarding the New Testament claim that over 3,000 people accepted Christianity after listening to a sermon by Peter, one of Stark's sources basically said that that is a literary exaggeration, and should not be taken seriously. In well-known Christian apologist James Holding's article that is titled "The Impossible Faith," Holding quotes well-known Christian Bible scholar N.T. Wright as saying "This subversive belief in Jesus' Lordship, over against that of Caesar, was held in the teeth of the fact that Caesar had demonstrated his superior power in the obvious way, by having Jesus crucified. But the truly extraordinary thing is that this belief was held by a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire."

None of that is surprising since Jesus did not perform any miracles, did not rise from the dead, and obviously did not make any post-resurrection appearances.

steve_bnk · 07-21-2010, 07:49 PM

People were waiting for a messiqh that was going to blow down Rome with a trumpoet, not somone fasting in the desert preaching a renunciation of worldy things and brotherhood.

Love your enemies like yourself would get the modern conservative response to offering the olive branch to the extremists.

Enemy in the context of the times would likely be Rome.

Vampyroteuthis · 07-22-2010, 05:55 AM

Off to BCH.

aa5874 · 07-22-2010, 07:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by show_no_mercy

There are also some other Jewish writers in the first century like Philo, Greco-Romans who wrote about the events and/or sects in the first century like Pliny and Tacitus. Out of these, only Tacitus mentions Jesus and Christians, and he doesn't mention anything about any vast number of Jews being followers of Jesus.....

Tacitus did NOT mention the name Jesus. In "ANNALS" 15 the word Jesus cannot be found anywhere.

It cannot be assumed that "Christus" must refer to Jesus and further parts of Annals 15 may have been interpolated since no apologetic source used "ANNALS" 15 as evidence that Jesus did exist, not even Eusebius used ANNALS 15, he used a forgery Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3.

Even up to the 5th century, an apologetic source, even though appearing to quote "ANNALS 15, did not include the word "Jesus" in the passage.

Plus, the mention of "Christian" does not have to mean "believers in Jesus". There were Christians since the days of the Emperor Claudius who did not believe in Jesus according to an apologetic source.

stephan huller · 07-22-2010, 07:43 AM

It's not even worth discussing. As I noted on several other posts here - Jesus never applies the title to himself. As Celsus notes "the prophecies agree with ten thousand other things more credibly than with Jesus."

Jesus wasn't a king, therefore he wasn't the messiah.

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07-21-2010, 11:48 AM	#11
Johnny Skeptic Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 19,796	It is doubtful that more than a relative handful of Jews accepted Jesus in the first century A.D. In the book "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that in 100 A.D., there were only 7,530 Christians in the entire world. Regarding the New Testament claim that over 3,000 people accepted Christianity after listening to a sermon by Peter, one of Stark's sources basically said that that is a literary exaggeration, and should not be taken seriously. In well-known Christian apologist James Holding's article that is titled "The Impossible Faith," Holding quotes well-known Christian Bible scholar N.T. Wright as saying "This subversive belief in Jesus' Lordship, over against that of Caesar, was held in the teeth of the fact that Caesar had demonstrated his superior power in the obvious way, by having Jesus crucified. But the truly extraordinary thing is that this belief was held by a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire." None of that is surprising since Jesus did not perform any miracles, did not rise from the dead, and obviously did not make any post-resurrection appearances.

07-21-2010, 07:49 PM	#12
steve_bnk Contributor Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Seattle Posts: 27,602	People were waiting for a messiqh that was going to blow down Rome with a trumpoet, not somone fasting in the desert preaching a renunciation of worldy things and brotherhood. Love your enemies like yourself would get the modern conservative response to offering the olive branch to the extremists. Enemy in the context of the times would likely be Rome.

07-22-2010, 05:55 AM	#13
Vampyroteuthis Contributor Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 14,915	*Off to BCH.*

07-22-2010, 07:43 AM	#15
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	It's not even worth discussing. As I noted on several other posts here - Jesus never applies the title to himself. As Celsus notes "the prophecies agree with ten thousand other things more credibly than with Jesus." Jesus wasn't a king, therefore he wasn't the messiah.

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