Gamera

There are no letters or journal entries from 1st century Judea by any Jews. So for all we know they did and they were lost with whatever other letters were written about Pilate, the weather, and how Greeks lie a lot.

The point is you argument from absense only makes sense if there is some extant mss of the type you claim would validate the historicity of Jesus. There are none. Using your argument, Herod didn't exist.

Gamera

You'll lose that argument. The mss production of Christianity from the 1st century on is tremendous. We have precisous little classic pagan culture.

In fact the mss count has been made. I beleive it's like 30 to 1. I'll dig it up for you.

Gamera

[QUOTE=xaxxat].

Because he started a movement that quickly grew and thus he became an issue for detractors and promoters alike.

Yes, in fact the number of texts about Jesus relatively shortly after his death is probative of his historicity.

Doug Shaver

I don't think so. I think you're only obliged to say that the evidence for Socrates' existence, like the evidence for Jesus' existence, is inconclusive.

Here is my comparative analysis of the evidence for each: http://dougshaver.com/christ/socrates/socrates00.htm. Would you care to critique it?

cajela

If you are correct about the sources, Gamera, then you make a fair point. I'm inclined to believe you about the sources for Socrates but not about those for Herod. (But I'm not a historian so I may be wrong.)

So without any primary sources, what can you conclude? The possiblities are:
1) Socrates/Jesus was real and the accounts are true
2) Socrates/Jesus was real and the accounts are a mix of truth and fiction
3) Socrates/Jesus was real, but the accounts are false
4) Socrates/Jesus was not real at all

I'm inclined to dismiss 1 and believe 2 in both cases, with a *very* heavy mixture of fiction for JC. Case 3 is pretty much indistinguishable from 4; if everything you know about someone is fiction, then it doesn't much matter if a real person's name was atttached to the fiction.

The mythicists argue for 3 or 4. In that case I think that you need an account of why the fiction came to be, to substantiate the argument. And they do have that. It's not a weird conspiracy theory; it's an account of a religion that fits in with the ethos of the times. It uses a lot of mystery and symbol. And later on, people started mistaking the allegories and myths for true stories. I find this also quite reasonable and plausible.

xaxxat

[QUOTE=Gamera]His movement sputtered for 300 years, with its members at each others throats, until Constantine to put the weight of the empire behind it and used it like a tool.

And all the number of texts prove is that there were a lot of flavors then, everybody making their own contribution to the myth.

He was so inconsequential that he didn't rate a contemporary mention from anyone. Just another messianic wannabe...

cjack

There is a reason for that, you know. Given that we only know of the works of (classic pagan) Aristotle because of the diligence of the Muslims, I wouldn't be at all surprised if quite a bit of evidence for the existence of Socrates wasn't deliberately destroyed by the Christians.

You do know that our lack of knowledge regarding "classic pagan culture" is due to a deliberate and systematic destruction of any record of that culture, don't you?

OldYgg

History - as all sciences and social sciences - evolves and has been refined over time. What was considered history once in the past - does not necessarily pass must now as history. Herodotus (spelled correctly) was great in that he gathered a lot of information from a wide number of resources and wrote it down. This doesn't say anything in particular about the sources he used - or in the end the accuracy of his statements.

See this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus

Mein Kampf has its place in history, but a reader should certainly be skeptical of the contents of that book and actual events as Hitler - to say even the most polite way - had an agenda.

Newspapers, are actually great forms of first person reports on events - when they exist. They have to be assigned weight about events - depending on the bias of the paper or if the paper is truly unbiased in its reporting.

Official documents vary in their form. Birth certificants - which are witnessed and sealed represent first person documents. CIA reports of spying activity against various people may sometimes need to be filtered by the bias of the reporting agents, their bosses or the politicians they work for.

There is an incredible file on Albert Einstein - and one too on John Lennon. These files are filled with slander and allegations at even the hint that either spoke to a person from another country. This - after Albert Einstein asked our government to investigate a certain theory about nuclear weapons - so that we had it before any other country on Earth. The ethical long term value of this is debatable, but also it is known that we would rather have had it before the Soviets.

A law is a historical, first person document, but what it tells you about the past is questionable. It really depends on the law. As we all know some laws are passed that few in the populace at large believe. We couldn't take laws and say - 'this is what everyone believed at that time.' You could only say that this is what the politicians saw benefit in passing at that time.

Court records are excellent first-person documents. Indeed there are records of Inquisition trials that are full of information - especially when exploring a person like Giordano Bruno - killed for his belief that the stars were other suns and that life was possible on other planets - and the fact that he wouldn't recant like Gallileo did.

You even have to question and have verifying documents about things like diaries. You verify as many facts through other sources before you go out on a limb and claim that everything (or even most things) in a particular diary are in fact - facts and not false statements.

There was the diary of Ann Frank. By itself, with no other documentation of the events in WWII, would you say what she wrote was true and factual? No.

But we have many documents about the way things were at that time, and what was going on. We have context and independent verification that leads us to say that Ann Frank's diary talks about events that happened in the real world, not fictional.

And lastly, we have to watch out for people that both alter historical documents on purpose in the future of those records or that alter them as they are created. Indeed, some of these may remain questionable - and without independent verification, cannot be held as truth. There have been many forgeries in history. And there are many countries that form the opinions of their children by giving them history books that are limited at best - and grossly biased at worst.

Court documents are great first person documents about what is going on in that court room, but do they really detail the truth? Do people lie under oath? Hell yeah, they do. Determining if they did or not, that is the trick.

Given that even normal human events have to be verified from multiple sources - imagine the proof that is necessary for abnormal events or supernatural events? If the events happened as you allege about Jesus, there should have been hundreds of people who would have talked about it, written about it, talked some more and continued on and on - as we do today when things happen. There were fewer of them and fewer of them were writers, but when something important happens it was documented, and not just by a couple of people.

Something as simple as the real identity of Shakespeare is quite difficult to discern with 100% accuracy - as there are inconsistencies in the historical record. Was it even a single individual?

So, you tell me Jesus exists and was a real person. You role out some pitiful proof - that I can count on my two hands, that was not written during the life of Jesus Christ, and furthermore stretches the time frame in which someone could possibly have been alive at the time of Jesus Christ and you tell me 'oh I've got proof! If you don't believe me you're being deliberately stubborn!' Well, I've got to tell you, that you have 1) too few documents, 2) documents in the wrong time period 3) documents that are not specific about the events they claim to tell us about 4) Books that fit mythological, not factual in style, description and substance (the bible).

There were many things that happened in JC's lifetime that are well documented and taken as historical fact. If he existed and the things that happened to him did in fact happen, where is the documentry proof?

I'm not saying that things don't happen that aren't documented. If they did happen, you might say that you personally believe that x or y happened, but you can never say you have historical evidence that x or y happened.

Old Ygg

seraphimkawaii

I would say a great amount was destroyed, however a great deal was also just immersed into christianity. Things like virgin births, animal sacrifices, the halo around jesus' head, the date of xmas, resurrected saviors, etc, all have basis in pagan traditions, as an effort to try and convert more pagans to the cause.

seraphimkawaii

No...we'll stop refuting your sources when you present the obvious, mind-blowing, all conclusive proof of jesus we've been waiting 16 pages for. Though to be fair, you're not the 1st person who should step up with those. Patriarch Verelch should come back and show us these documents, really. But if you can find this source, by all means show it to us.