Newton's Cat

I think we need to look around the 1st century AD and see if there are any plays with Jesus as the central character. When I read the New Testament I keep "seeing" scenes from a play.

The Gospel of Mark is a play - its different from the other three.

Some of Paul's stuff come across as a play as well.

David B

Using intuition is all very well.

Mine tells me that there was a historical Jesus, and that when David Koresh like charactors claim to be the next coming of Jesus, then they are closer to the truth than most people give them credit for.

My intuition tells me that there was a real Jesus, who was a charismatic superstitious egomaniac with an ideology.

Just like so many others we see, now and in history.

But using intuition like that falls short of hard evidence.

The NT is the only hard evidence of Jesus that there is. Period.

The fact that such documents emerged within a few generations is not enough to make me think, on the balance of probabilities, that there was no Jesus.

But is we really want to have good grounds to know that Jesus was a historical person, looking at it as plays which work or not don't make it.

The discovery of a contemporary document, which was established as genuine, that was an eye witness account, would establish the existence of a historical Jesus.

However, even if an eyewitness account were to emerge, including eye witness accounts of miracles, then this would not establish the reality of miracles.

Because there are so many cases of people believing that they have seen miracles, which turn out to be fraud or error, and because nothing allegedly miraculous has sttod up to sceptical examination.

David B

Godless Dave

No, a document written before 50 A.D. by someone who said he had heard Jesus speak or saw his arrest or execution.

Godless Dave

Mine tells me the same thing, except I don't think he was necessarily an egomaniac, nor was he necessarily more superstitious than other members of the society he lived in.

David B

Not necessarily, no.

It's still what my intuition comes up with though.

It's my working hypothesis, anyway.

If good evidence emerged that he was a fabrication, then I'd have a different working hypothesis.

If contemporary evidence about his acts and/ or words emerged, then I might have to change my opinion.

But, if hypothetical contemporary accounts which might emerge included supernatural claims, then I wouldn't find them convincing. Any more than I find the accounts of true believers in Benny Hinn convincing.

David B

Malachi151

To quote myself:

* Pontius Pilate was not a procurator, he was a prefect, which shows that Tacitus was writing this based on hearsay, not record
* Any Roman record of the killing of Jesus would have mentioned him by the name Jesus, not "Christus" or "Christ"
* Tacitus thinks that his name is "Christus", a birth name, not "Christ" or "Christos", which is a title (the anointed one)
* The information about "Christus" being killed and founding the religion came from the Christians, it's not independently established
* Tacitus says that "Christus" created the name "Christianity", but the name Christianity didn't come into existence until after the supposed lifetime of Jesus, and Jesus is never claimed to have used the term "Christian", it doesn't even appear in the Gospels

We know that Tacitus didn't get the idea that "Christus" was killed by Pontius Pilate from a Roman source because no Roman source would refer to "Christ" or "Christus". If Tacitus got this information from a Roman reference to an actual execution, then he would have used the name Jesus because a Roman source would not have recorded the execution of a person by the religious title "Christ", which would have had no meaning to the Romans anyway. Tacitus is clearly piecing together "common knowledge" here, meaning public opinion, and shows that he isn't fully knowledgeable about Christianity, but rather he just knows the popular claims about it. Tacitus clearly didn't even understand what the name "Christus" was supposed to mean, because he used the name "Christus" as a birth name, not as a religious title meaning "The Anointed One".

Tacitus lived from 59 CE to 117 CE and is considered one of the best Roman historians. This quote is the only reference he makes to "Christ", and it's clearly a misinformed reference based on second-hand accounts of what Christians believed, it's not a record of "the crucifixion", as some Christians have claimed that it is.

Zindiiq

I don't know about finding an existing play of the era, but I definitely agree that the Gospels definitely read like a play in some parts. Take, for example, the part when Jesus is in Gethsemane with his sleeping cronies. The texts read that Jesus prayed three times and even gives the words that Jesus spoke when he was praying. Now, unless he recanted to his somnolent compatriots what happened while they were sleeping, how the hell would they know what happened and thus be able to write about it? We know that he did not tell them because as soon as he woke them for the third time Judas came and Jesus was arrested.

The author(s) elected to relate this passage using third person limited omniscient point of view -- we, the readers (or the watchers in a play) know what is going on, and see action, from the point of view of one character's mind, but the characters in the play do not know what is going on. This is common in works of fiction with the most famous example being Hamlet's great soliloquy "To be or Not to Be."

There are other examples in the Gospels of the authors relating things that they would have no way of knowing if they had lived the events they were writing about and writing from thier perspectives, but I can't think of any off hand.

Iasion

Have you seen this ?

http://www.nazarenus.com/

A reconstruction of a purported play about Jesus by Seneca.

Iasion

Iasion

Pardon?
If Sulpicius interpolated the passage into Tacitus in the 4th century - how would a 2nd century reader of Tacitus know that?


Passages are added to MSS all the time.


Iasion

Iasion

What "evidence" ?

The early epistles mention nothing about a historical Jesus of Nazareth - just spiritual formulae about a Risen Christ.

The Gospels do not become known to Christians until long afterwards - THEN Christian writers mention the Gospel details over and over.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~quentin...ity/Table.html

The conclusion is clear - Christians learnt about Jesus from the Gospels - late anonymous religious works.

Before the Gospels become widely known in mid 2nd century - no Christian shows any knowledge of the historical details at all.

Such as the EMPTY TOMB - not mentioned by any Christian until a century or more after the alleged events.


Iasion