Steven Carr

NT Wright writes 'This “was a variation that attempted to retain Christian language about Jesus, and about the future destiny of Christians, whole filling it with non-Christian, and for that matter non-Jewish, content. If this mutation had been the norm, and belief in bodily resurrection the odd variant, why would anyone have invented the latter? And why would not Celsus have pointed this all out?” (Resurrection of the Son of God (or via: amazon.co.uk), page 84)

So if Celsus did not mention X, then X was not a valid point against Christianity.

Does anybody have more examples of arguments from silence in Celsus?

Toto

You mean besides the oft-repeated claim that Celsus didn't mention mythicism, so it didn't exist?

Doug Shaver

Because NT Wright said so?

Ben C Smith

You are right, Steven. Wright does abuse the argument from silence.

Ben.

lee_merrill

Are you sure this is an accurate quote? It contains a number of bad grammatical errors, such as any editor should find.

Well yes, I do, the skeptics generally take historical references such as these and saying they aren't good enough, then claim (from silence) that Jesus did not exist.

Regards,
Lee

Toto

The text is searchable on Amazon. There are 2 minor typos.

[It] was a variation that attempted to retain Christian language about Jesus, and about the future destiny of Christians, while filling it with non-Christian, and for that matter non-Jewish, content. If this mutation had been the norm, and belief in bodily resurrection the odd variant, why would anyone have invented the latter? And why would not Celsus have pointed this all out?”

Cheerful Charlie

A lot of Xians claim there were Roman government records on Jesus in Pilate's court, but if so, Celsus didn't know of any. Possibly there would not have been much if anything. Just another Jewish troublemaker crucified for stirring up the peasants. A few short lines at best.

CC