RUmike

Oh, but are DtC or Amaleq "learned scholars"? Yet I don't see you rejecting what they have to say. To be honest I would consider Stephen Carlson closest to, if not already, a learned scholar than any other on this board, and yet spacejunkie seems to have rejected his opinion already. So much for the "learned scholars" approach.

From what I've read of Roger's posts, he seems like a level-headed, fair and nice guy, and certainly not as "conservative" and "orthodox" as they come. It would seem that you've never even read his posts, yet feel perfectly fine being unnecessarily rude to him.

darstec

Compared to Pearse, most definitely. They even show they can think rather than just parrot orthodoxy. Anyone who has read Roger a few times already knows what he is going to say before he puts his fingers to the keyboard. In fact his answers are so predictable they should be numbered. Oh wait, a vast majority of them are, in the RCC Catechism book.Stephen Carlson is indeed a fine scholar, however spacejunkie did ask for the opinions of scholars of anti-religion, which Mr. Carlson is not and therefore I assume spacejunkie might have felt familiar with his arguments. Besides Stephen is hedging by making it seem that Tacitus and Suetonius were almost contemporaries of Jesus of Nazareth.

Apparently you only read of his postings here where the moderators have a toning affect upon what he writes. [And indeed have had the same toning affect of one or two of my posts in the past] Google his output on the newsgroups. He is as vituperative as any fanatical Christian has ever been when he is addressing non conservative, non apologist, non Christians on Usenet. And I have read his posts both here and on Usenet. Or at least I read as much of him as I can stand in any one day before dismissing him, as I would Deep South bigots who use the N.. word. In the newsgroups he plays the martyr who blames atheists for trying to feed Christians to the lions ior at least destroy Christianity. Any mention of the same ideas expressed here results in a highly bombastic response from him elsewhere. I could quote numerous examples but I do not want to pollute this forum. Check him out yourself. Google is your friend.

RUmike

Well I submit that there is not even one "learned scholar of anti-religion" on this board, so really no one should have replied then.

darstec

You would then be wrong. There are others who participate on this forum who are at least as learned as he, but not necessarily given the same respect.

Amaleq13

Discussion of Josephus is found in the thread I linked in my post (ie long answer), Mr. "Proper".

spacejunkie

Link(s)?

I talked with my friend last night and it is indeed Josephus that she was thinking of. The data I’ve found mentions one reference to Jesus in Josephus’ work. The neutrality of this quote along with the fact that Josephus doesn’t ever mention Jesus again doesn’t seem to lend much weight to the Christian perspective. Josephus, being a Jew, would have no doubt been ecstatic about news of the Messiah. In fact Josephus’ tone seems quite the opposite and could even be construed as contrary (see bold).

spacejunkie

darstec is right. Sorry if I sounded dismissive. I did not mean to reject SC’s opinion outright. On the contrary I hope that SC, since he is apparently a scholar of such things, will expand on his opinion. I’ll say it again, ”Surly there are histories of the time that were recorded during the time itself as opposed to 100+ years later.” My unscholarly presumption is that such histories would be much more useful in there ability to reflect the truth due to the fact that they were written by people who were actually alive to witness the events of the time.

spacejunkie

Many Thanks!

S.C.Carlson

For Tiberius, there's one: a world history by Velleius Paterculus, written c. 29, whose oldest surviving copy was made in 1516. Classical historians prefer Tacitus and Suetonius to Velleius, however, because Velleius was too pro-Tiberius to be objective (and being objective about a current emperor is not particularly good for one's life expectancy). Honest historiography best comes afterwards.

I'm assuming that the evidence for Jesus in Paul and the gospels is being excluded for their lack of objectivity. One could say the same about Velleius. If Paul comes in, the evidence for Jesus considerably strengthens. Though Paul's letters were written after Jesus's crucifixion, Paul himself was a contemporary of Jesus. (Philo would then qualify under this criterion for Tiberius.)

The basic point that the cut-offs in the OP are arbitrary (non-partisan and within 65 years of death) and are much stricter than the actual sources classical historians prefer and use for Tiberius, a figure of much more contemporary influence than Jesus.

Stephen

Diogenes the Cynic

This particular passage from Josephus is almost universally believed to be at least a partial (if not total) forgery. There is another Josephan reference to a James "the brother of Jesus, called 'Christ.'" which has wider acceptance but is still not undisputed.