youngalexander

For those of us who know and love GDon there is recognition that there was nothing inadvertent concerning his Carrier quotation. While technically you may of course have a point, it must be recognised that 'Moses the Christ' and 'Herod the Christ' were represented amongst that August body of Judaic sects.

As RC himself has sed;

Clearly, the Jews of that era were ready and willing to believe a great many things seemingly contrary to what we think of Judaism today

Why not a Jesus the Christ? Paul did.:devil1:

Oh, I do beg your pardon. You were seeking evidence!

mountainman

Constantine.

aa5874

But there appears to be no oral tradition of Jesus the Christ, his followers, or his teachings in the first century.

There are no anecdotal stories, no embellishments, no misrepresentations of miraculous acts, no rumors of Jesus the Christ, his thousands of followers or his highly controversial teachings from extra-biblical sources of this charismatic teacher and revolutionary during the century in which he lived.

I have heard anecdotal stories, embellishments, and rumors about Martin Luther King Jr long before I saw a photo of him. I have heard about him from some who marched with him, some who took notes of speeches, yet it is inconceivable to me that Jesus the Christ could have lived a life similar to Martin Luther King Jr and only be known by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul, in the first century.

Amaleq13

What constitutes evidence of an oral tradition existing nearly 2,000 years ago?

What constitutes sufficient evidence to deny such a tradition existed?

I assume this paragraph should have started with "Other than the Gospels and the problematic passage in Josephus...", right?

Have you written any of them down so that someone 2,000 years from now can confirm that this oral tradition existed?

aa5874

We see evidence of oral tradition or transmission when writers of antiquity record events that they themselves did not witness, when they write about conversations that they could not have heard, oral tradition or transmission was probably the most frequent method of communication.

I am not denying oral tradition at any time, however it is my observation that with respect to Jesus the Christ, his multitudes of followers and his teachings, that no extant extra-biblical writings of the 1st century reflect any oral transmission of his life and events.

For example, Josephus, in all his works, Wars of the Jews, Antiquities of the Jews and the Life of Flavius Josephus did not write a single word about any rumors or hearsay, from any uknown source, regarding the life or events surrounding Jesus the Christ.


You are obviously right, the Gospels made certain claims about Jesus the Christ, thousands of his followers and his radical teachings. The book called Acts also have claims of thousands of conversions almost on a daily basis and of persecution and death to these followers, yet only Mark, Matthew, Luke and Paul appeared to have been the beneficiary of oral transmission in the 1st century.

I am searching for an anecdotal story, a single rumor, a solitary embellishment or just a speculative word about Jesus the Christ, his followers and teachings by Pliny the Elder, Philo, Josephus or any another extra-biblical historian, poet, philospher of the 1st century.

So far, I have come away empty-handed. The historicity of Jesus the Christ is in shambles.

mountainman

Well noone on this forum is going to deny that the bible was first
bound together five years after the Council of Nicaea, so that just
leaves the second and the third centuries to look at, doesnt it?

If you examine, with some care the citations of the second and
third centuries, all of which were tendered in the fourth century,
then you just may arrive at the same conclusion regarding the
second and the third centuries, as you did with the first.

But where will that leave you other than a fourth century fiction
about which we already have Emperor Julian saying:

It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind
the reasons by which I was convinced that
the fabrication of the Galilaeans
is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.

Though it has in it nothing divine,
by making full use of that part of the soul
which loves fable and is childish and foolish,
it has induced men to believe
that the monstrous tale is truth.

Julian. c.362 CE

Chili

You sound like Magdalene when Jesus rose to be with Christ and now here Jesus Christ rose to be with his father and you say "he's gone!"

Didn't you know that Jesus left the scene soon after he became Jesus the Christ?

boneyard bill

But the fact is that our actual contemporary data for people even as well known and significant as Pericles and Alexander is really pretty sparse. When you compare Christ with Buddha or Mohammed, you run into a similar problem. We don't have any contemporary data on these religious founders either. Everything we have stems from the next generation or later. (With the possible exception of the Koran itself. But that's basically a circular problem).

aa5874

As far as I understand Buddha is not a person or a god, it is a state of mind or some state of achievement in the system.
Mohammed, based on what I have gleaned, is not the central figure of the Quran, it is Allah, and Mohammed is not a God or his Son. And even if we canot determine the historicity of Mohammed, it is Allah whose existence needs to be verified. Similarly, it is not the historicity of Matthew, Mark, Luke or Paul we are considering, it is the main character, Jesus the Christ in the first century.

And in addition, you should make note of all the persons, who lived in the 1st century, that Josephus mentioned in his writings. Josephus mentioned numerous persons, numerous anecdotes yet he failed to write a single word about Jesus the Christ, his thousands of followers or his teachings.

Chris Weimer

That is quite disingenuous to say such a thing.