Radcliffe Emerson

Of course, during the Dark Ages folks who questioned Jesus, the bible, etc were simply killed by the Catholic church and their writings (if any) destroyed.

SLD

Some great points, and I'll add one or two of my own.

The ancient world was clearly not the skeptical world that we live in today where people have 60 minutes, CNN, Dateline, or 20/20 to run in and do an expose of the latest fraud. Rationale people back then believed that demons caused disease. There were numerous religious cults with a variety of beliefs, both similar and very different from Christianity, and the Romans would not have even cared less about another one popping up. Except for the fact that Nero found it useful to blame the Christians (for him another subset of those revolting Jews) for the great fire of Rome. By that time, it was 30 years past the supposed events, and there was still little in the way of writings to show that this guy existed. It's as if suddenly historians of today are being asked to disprove that some Vietnamese peasant, named, Je Sus, rose from the dead after being put to death by the Viet Cong, stuck around for a few days and then flew off to heaven. Imagine a cult like that in Saigon today - with all of the believers pointing to a supposedly empty tomb. Could you really falsify that? Maybe with 60 minutes news crew interviewing the eyewitnesses and pointing out discrepancies in their stories. But there'd be many who still believed it.

But the ancient world didn't have that. The historians of that day were interested in documenting the truly important news of those days - such as the goings on of the emperors, and the successes and failures of the armies and revolutions that had to be contended with. Such claims of another miracle worker were insignificant little blips to them. It wasn't until the 2nd century that Christianity became something of a threat to Rome and then the historians began to take notice but by that time it was too late to get serious "proof" even if they wanted to. Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews dispersed from the holy land and all the eyewitnesses long since dead.

SLD

Iasion

Greetings Prof,

Well, some pagans (and even early Christians) did show scepticism about Christian claims -

Justin, mid 2nd century, records an argument with the Jew Trypho (perhaps Rabbi Tarphon, just after the Bar Kochba rebellion) who criticises Christian beliefs. Trypho's actual criticism is a bit hard to follow, I find.

Celsus makes a damaging critique of the Gospels as myths just after they rose to prominance - late 2nd century. His book "On the True Doctrine" was so damaging to Christian claims, that it was banned by the church and burned. He made claims such as this -
"Clearly the christians have used...myths... in fabricating the story of Jesus' birth...It is clear to me that the writings of the christians are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction"

Minucius Felix, late 2nd century, denied Christians believed in the crucifixion or the incarnation - a very strange case indeed.

Porphyry, 3rd century, attacked the evangelists as "inventors, not historians".)

Julian, in the 4th century, claimed Jesus was spurious and counterfeit :
"why do you worship this spurious son...a counterfeit son", "you have invented your new kind of sacrifice "

So,
some early sceptics DID debunk the Gospels - and in the case of Celsus, the church tried to erase his criticism.


Iasion

Quality

The simplest answer is that they don't really care. The head Raelian guy says he has talked to aliens directly. Modern historians aren't rushing to debunk his fanciful tales.

Radcliffe Emerson

One of those 2nd century disputers also wrote that Christians hated reason, because reason and their faith/belief were opposites, or something to that affect. He was very derogatory, writing that they were ignorant, choosing to just believe what they wanted despite reason.
I cannot recall now which 2nd century writer it was, but I believe it was one of the ones mentioned in the previous reply, hence why I thought of it.

diana

Indeed. How does one going about refuting the Argument from Silence About Silence?

Did these historians feel compelled to write that there was no actual Mithras, too? I haven't yet encountered any reason to believe the early Christians believed in a literal Jesus. Maybe it's all in the books I do read versus the ones I haven't yet, but the evidence seems to suggest the belief in the literal Jesus developed later.

d

Jayhawker Soule

I thought that we had come to some agreement about this 'dialogue' some time ago.

Iasion

Greetings,

"I thought that we had come to some agreement about this 'dialogue' some time ago"

Yup.

Did you disagree with something I said?

Do you not think Trypho criticised Christian beliefs?

Iasion

Ted Hoffman

Iasion,

Porphyry, Celsus, M. Felix, and Justin, AFAIK, do not question the historicity of Jesus: they only dispute some aspects of Jesus' life - like his birth, resurrection, miracles etc.

Mysteryprof:
Please ask your friend to specify what he means by "early historians". Possibly, ask him to give their names and the time they lived.

Jesus began as a son of God as we see in early christian writings like Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement and Odes of Solomon, then from this intermediary role, he became a dying and resurrecting saviour figure as we see in Paul's letters (this death and resurrection took place in some sublunar realm like the death and resurrection of Attis/Isis - this example shows 'proof of concept'), then after that, a historical Jesus was fabricated with 'the twelve' to provide a veritable apostolic chain of authority that could link the early church fathers to Jesus.

GakuseiDon

Must... resist... being dragged back... into Christ Myth blackhole... arghhhh... force is too strong...

No, Celsus didn't say that. Check here. Hoffman didn't just paraphrase Celsus, he changed the meaning around completely.

No, he didn't say that at all. The accusation was that the founder of Christianity was a crucified man who was crucified for wickedness, and therefore Christians must have been wicked themselves to worship such a thing. The reply was that Christians neither wished for nor worshipped crosses. The author then gives a long defence about the appropriateness of the shape of the cross itself. Either he was saying that Christians didn't worship crucifixion, or that Christians didn't idolise crosses. The fact that he gives a defence of the shape of the cross suggests that it was important to Christians.