FernandoAguilar

Not exactly. We have a good idea of how these messianic characters of the first century was treated by the authorities from Josephus. The NT-Jesus story isn't very plausible history.

If Jesus existed he may have been so unimportant in his community that he would not be noticed by anyone, not even Photius. Thus, the hypothesis that Jesus existed does not necessarily predict any non-christian sources.

However, this creates another problem for Jesus-defenders, having to give a plausible scenario for how a nobody-Jesus could rise to the title of Messiah and Son of God within his own lifetime, not even being close to any leader of the Jews, popular rebell, or great moral teacher. Why would anyone regard such a Jesus their Saviour when he apparently did not influence many people to any significant degree?

Conclusively, the silence of non-christian sources does not constitute evidens against a historical Jesus. But the silence does support the myth theory becuse the hypothesis that Jesus never existed does predict a total silence - such a silence as we do find.

Minimalist

Feel free to join us at Jesusneverexisted.com. You can ask Ken directly. There is a forum for questions to him.

http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/for...p?action=forum

aa5874

The Jesus stories when written were absolutely plausible and believeable, that is why the stories are in the NT. If the stories were actually true or were believed by thousands of followers then one would expect some non-christian source to have written about Jesus of the NT.

The statement Jesus is a myth can only be overturned by evidence.

Jesus is a myth.

You have no evidence that can show Jesus was unimportant and was not noticed by anyone.

The NT claimed Jesus was noticed by thousands, if you propse that he was unnoticed, the authors of the Jesus stories are not credible.

I cannot assume Jesus existed because the authors lied or gave erroneous information.

I will claim Jesus is a myth until we can find some credible source. I cannot bring Jesus to life because that authors were not credible.

Plausibilty is not history. Even if you assume Jesus exist, you need evidence from some external credible source to back up your assumption.

Only evidence can overturn the statement "Jesus is a myth. You are right, we have silence.

Jesus is a myth.

Ben C Smith

Thank you for the invitation.

Ben.

Minimalist

De nada, amigo.

BTW, I find the web site terribly frustrating because of all the links to various sites and can rarely stick through it to get to the bottom of a given page without going off on a tangent. It was so bad that I bought the book which is a hell of a lot better.....( maybe that was his plan?)

In any case, in the book he does not believe in footnotes but rather puts excerpts from his various sources in the margins. It is much more effective and doesn't kill an old man's eyes the way footnotes do.

Johnny Skeptic

Would anyone like to list the major non-Christian first century evidence regarding the miracles that Jesus performed?

Toto

Hey Johnny - there is good no answer to your question, no matter how many times you ask it.

The historicists claim that the Bible is evidence, in particular the gospels, although they can't show that they were written in the first century to our satisfaction.

They also point to the phrase in Josephus in which Jesus is described as a doer of wondrous deeds, but this is 1) vague 2) probably not written in the first century.

That's about it.

spamandham

Although I agree that the TF entry in question is a later fraud, the site seems to me to misrepresent the Jamesian Reference (as it calls it). It isn't clear that the Jesus in that reference is Jesus the son of Damneus, nor is it clear that this particular Jesus is not the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Why couldn't he be?

I have commented multiple times here, that if there is a historical core to Jesus, he was likely (IMHO) either a high priest or a close relative of a high preist. The name "Jesus" seems to have high correlation to the priest class.

All that said, I do think the simpler explanation is that both references are fraudulent. The first fraud establishes the principle that Jesus fraud existed in Josephus. The 2nd fraud is just more of the same.

mountainman

Dear Toto and Johnny,

There is more if you are willing to go the long way around the subject. If you are willing to contemplate the matter sufficiently there is a whole list of items and citation which are currently being used as christian testimony but which are --- quite arguably --- non-christian testimony.

Here is an example:

The Prosenes Inscription

This is non-christian testimony which requires those special "christian glasses" to be donned prior to examination and classification. Almost like a little Dura-Europos in itself.

Christian publications use this citation in their emminent propaganda.
Why?

ANSWER: Because there are no readily available alternatives.


QUESTION to Johhny:

Dear Johnny,

You seem to be restricting your skepticism to the documentary evidence. Please have another look at the non documentary evidence. The monumental and epicgraphic citations are very few and they are very very ambiguous. If you are serious about being skeptical about christianity please spend a few evenings examining the other side of the coin to "the documents alone".

New testament scholarship is utterly frail on the archaeology for a very good reason ------- There isn't any !! You need to establish that this is in fact the case for yourselves. Good luck! Dont waste time. It might seem an insurmountable task, so use the above page a starter kit and branch out. You will quickly see, with a little diligence, that the non-documentary evidence as a set of citations (even listing out all the possible citations) is not too large at all. Please do it. You will not regret the research. Be skeptical of the all, not just the blatantly forged documents. The monuments are forgeries as well.


Best wishes,


Pete