jjramsey

There's an older and arguably better thread on Nazareth here: http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=228638

That said, FathomFFI is partially right. The arguments from silence with regard to Nazareth are fallacious. spamandham is right to say that unexpected silence (e.g. the dog that didn't bark in the night) is circumstantial evidence. However, none of the examples from the JesusNeverExisted site are really good examples of unexpected silence.

There is also quite a bit of rationalizing the evidence that is there. Kenneth Humphreys, the author of JesusNeverExisted.com, offers the idea that Nazareth was a single family farm, to explain away the evidence of farming there, and the idea of it being a necropolis to explain the funerary evidence. There is no thought given to the logistical issues of a single family isolating themselves as he surmises, such as questions of finding wives outside the farm for sons, or whether a single family has enough manpower to handle making or procuring equipment all by themselves. And speaking of silences, there is an interesting silence in Humphreys' discussion of the tombs at the Nazareth site. He never offers any hard numbers as to the distance from the purported village to the tombs, only an assertion that a village would have been too close.

aa5874

Your statement may not be true.

Only when it can be proven that Nazareth did actually exist during the time of Jesus that it can be said that the arguments fron silence are fallacious.

Consider a debate or a discussion where there are two proposals:

Party 1. Nazareth did not exist during the time of Jesus.
Party 2. Nazareth did exist during the time of Jesus.

There is nothing inherently logically fallcious about these two proposals, each party will try to substantiate or show that their position is stronger.

Party 1 claims there is no evidence anywhere for Nazareth during the time of Jesus , external of the NT, so they conclude Nazareth did not exist at that time.

Party 2 claim they do not have to provide any evidence to support their position.

Party 2 really has nothing to offer.

If Nazareth did not exist at the time of Jesus, then Party 1 position is true.

Party 2 cannot prove Party 1 position is false, only that it maybe false, but, of course, Party 1 may be right.

Party 2 has nothing to offer to the discussion, they just don't know anything about Nazareth at the time Jesus.

FathomFFI

Party 2's objective may not be to prove the existence of Nazareth, but instead to disprove the arguments against what is currently deemed by many as evidence.

If said arguments are proven to be fallicious or unreasonable, and some evidence exists attesting to the existence of Nazareth 1st century, then arguments against that evidence has been proven as fallicious and unreasonable.

What that means is that some evidence exists, and some evidence always trumps no evidence.

spamandham

What I said refuted your claim that the OT wasn't relevant because it was written "hundreds if not thousands of years before the time of Jesus". That's factually incorrect - and dishonestly so I suspect.

I reject your argument that it has no relevance at face value. I could similarly hand wave away the gospels based on the mere fact they contain absurdities, but I don't do that, because I'm actually interested in trying to sort through the puzzle rather than simply to confirm aspects of my faith (which is clearly what you're doing).

You're wasting everyone's time here and making no progress in promoting your ridiculous standards of historical evidence or crazy claims of logical fallacies that do not apply outside deductive reasoning, and which you yourself do not even abide by.

I've concluded there is nothing behind your original gripe with jesusneverexisted, and so I'm done.

Antipope Innocent II

Sorry, but if he's arguing simply that a town called Nazareth existed on the current site, why does he have to prove that this town was "as described in the gospels"? The gospels get details and geography wrong all over the place - which is pretty much what we'd expect from texts written after the fact and probably written by those whose knowledge of these things was, at best, second hand.

So no, he doesn't need to prove Nazareth had cliffs or a synagogue (which doesn't have to be a building anyway), just that the place existed.

See above - you can drop the irrelevant stuff about it needing to "fit the descriptions in the gospels". And there's more there than a well and a few farm buildings - there's also a hypocaust-equipped bath-house.

The archaeologists (as opposed to kooky amateurs and whacko Buddhist piano teachers) agree that the site was continuously inhabited. There is, therefore, no good reason to doubt that the Nazareth of the Fourth Century was somehow different to the Nazareth of the First Century. So the site we have is most likely to be the First Century Nazareth.

In light of the archaeological evidence and the continuous habitation of the site, that conclusion is absolutely ridculous.

Toto

Fathom: you still have not shown that anyone has ever argued that the lack of any mention of Nazareth is PROOF that it does not exist. That would be a fallacy, but no one has committed that fallacy.

But the only "evidence" you have brought up so far is that Nazareth was mentioned in some Christian documents that can be dated to the second century. This is not "evidence."

So we are back where we started. You can't say that Nazareth existed or not without looking at the archeology.

And it is not clear why you are doing this. If Nazareth existed, that does not prove that Jesus existed. If Nazareth did not exist, that does not prove that Jesus did not exist.

FathomFFI

I believe I have distinguished between what is "proof" and what is deemed as "evidence." All the "arguments" of exclusion of Nazareth being mentioned in the list of literary sources presented by jesusneverexisted have been cast into serious doubt, and in our opinion, those "arguments" are now invalid.

Since those arguments are now all invalid, what arguments do they now have in relation to literary sources?

None.

I'm afraid it is evidence. It's a historical reference in the 2nd century to the existence of Nazareth in the 1st century.

And that is some evidence.


I'm only doing this for the sake of the art of debate. Don't take it personally.

FathomFFI

And look at who is waving their hand now?

By the way, I am an agnostic swinging hard towards atheism. Try again, pal.

Can't defeat the logic, so attack the character?

Whatever floats your boat.

aa5874

Again, it is illogical to claim an entity exists because you believe another person is logically fallacious.

For example, the earth did not suddenly become round and revolve the sun because flat earthers were illogical. The earth was proven to be round and to revolve around the sun.

An illogical argument does not support the existence of Nazareth, you must prove it to be so. And failing to prove Nazareth did exist at the time of Jesus may mean that you were the one who was logically fallacious from the start.

FathomFFI

What am I claiming? Have I said that Nazareth definitely existed? Or am I saying the evidence shows enough reason for us to believe that it did?

The evidence to support the existence of Nazareth definitely out-weighs any assertions that it did not exist.

That's what I'm saying.

With all the evidence considered, is it unreasonable to conclude that Nazareth existed?