Chaucer

Are you seriously suggesting that Antiq. 20 and Tacitus and Suetonius are all examples of Christian literature?

Chaucer

spin

Chaucer's best response:
Do you need to demonstrate your deficient reading skills again?

I did seriously suggest that the relevant parts of "Antiq. 20 and Tacitus and Suetonius" seem best considered under #3 of the list I provided.

The speaker of the statement I quoted "has already given up their critical facilities", leading to their running not on analysis but belief and "may as well believe whatever rubbish christian literature provides them."

Toto

Josephus might as well be Christian literature. His works survived because Christians preserved them, and they did so for a reason. You might want to read Steve Mason's Josephus and the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk). (Mason does agree with you that the Ant 20 reference is genuine.)

mountainman

Juststeve,

0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 still equals zero.

If you want a cumulative case to actually count, you need to quibble.

Tacitus scored a zero.
Josephus scores a zero.
The NT scores a zero.
Pliny scores a zero.
The vacuum evidence of the First Century scores a BIG ZERO.

Cumulative zero is zero.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Seriously, they are classic examples of "serious Christian interpolations". That is, while the original authors certainly wrote textual works, none of them mentioned anything "Christian" in those original works.

mountainman

A decent sketch of the christian hegemonic landscape.

That Christianity maintained a cultural hegemony from the time of Theodosius (and to a lesser extent from the time of Constantine) is itself also part of the christian hegemony, which is insiduously entrenched in the culture. Another's opinion, whom I follow, on the notion that the historical reality of christian hegemony was enforced immediately after Constantine became the supreme military commander (and not under Theodosius) is Barnes.

Toto

Let's keep the topic of this thread TACITUS. Thanks,

aa5874

You mean that you are talking about the OBSCURE preacher man who was NOT CHRIST and was NOT born in Bethlehem?

Well, NO EXTRA-BIBLICAL sources of antiquity mentioned your OBSCURE preacher man who was NOT CHRIST.

You are NOT making sense. Why have you assumed or PRESUMED that there was a NON-MAGICAL Jesus?

You look in books of magical events and expect to EXTRACT history.Why do HJers use Galatians 1.19 when MAGICAL Jesus is in Galatians?

Why are you and Juststeve any different to the MARCIONITES who believed the PHANTOM existed THOUGH they had NO PROOF of what they believed?

HJers, Marcionites and Fundamentalists ALL have NO PROOF of what they BELIEVE about Jesus.

But, in the Pauline writings found CANONISED, "PAUL" claimed he was NOT the Apostle of a MAN.

Jesus was just a story like the PHANTOM of Marcion that people BELIEVED WITHOUT proof.


And we have PROOF that Tacitus Annals was MANIPULATED. Tell all the HJers what happened in 2008.

We can SEE the "E" now. We can see the manipulation of Tacitus ANNALS 15.44

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ

Frank

Where's your evidence for this claim? We're not talking about something extraordinary, we're talking about whether or not a known historian, recorded an entry in a work (one of several volumes), which is widely accepted by historians as a historical artifact; and which we're quite sure he wrote (notwithstanding the controversy over the paragraph at issue here).

Taticus doesn't really affirm anything. He's not saying a god-man resurrected from the dead, he's not claiming to have witnessed anything, indeed (to paraphrase) he calls Christianity an absurd superstition (I think I would have liked Taticus).

There is nothing "unordinary" about this, and "ordinary evidence" in the context of historical investigation (where evidence is inherently weak compared to say the burden of evidence required in a court case), can support "ordinary claims."

Even if Tacitus wrote it, we can't be completed sure of his source. There is archeological evidence showing Pilate was the governor of Judea, but I concede it is odd that Tacitus would have gotten his title wrong, although not necessarily (the version we have may not have been a finished work, but if it wasn't, then we circle back to questioning his information source, maybe it was a draft where he simply notated what he heard from other unreliable sources that he never got around to fact checking, who the fuck knows)?

Maybe some medieval monk altered the work (but there's nothing besides conjecture supporting this idea).

Anyway, ultimately this is not an extraordinary claim, and thus does not require extraordinary evidence. We could go down this same rabbit hole & wonder if Caesar really invaded France. We don't, because there's nothing extraordinary about another Roman meglomaniac butchering his opposition (and we have the same sort of evidence that we have for most events during that period). In other words, we have as much evidence as we're probably ever going to have, and if Caesar never invaded France, no one will lose sleep over it.

We have to assume Christianity came from somewhere. Later in the second century the evidence (that Christians existed) starts becoming more traceable, and in the ancient world (without an internet, telephones, planes, trains, or automobiles) we have to imagine cults did not morph into a giant religion overnight. So it's not unreasonable to assume Christianity began sometime in the first century, and given this, it's also not unreasonable to assume Taticus would have known about them (so far, nothing extraordinary).

Yet we can still reject the fantastic claims made by Christianity, because the evidence for those claims is appauling (and those are precisely the type of claims which do require extraordinary evidence). I can also easily dismiss the claims made by Mormons, even though I'm quite sure Joseph Smith existed (and in fact the whole story of Momonism is a testament to human gullibility). The real issue is (with regard to religious claims, like Christianity) is whether it's more plausible to believe the laws of nature were suspended in favor of an ancient desert sage (and something happened that we know is physically impossible), or whether some other explanation is more reasonable (like the human gullibility that's so common in human history)?

So I don't see why we need to promote speculative arguments to validate atheism? We already have the rational high ground, and engaging in this sort of argument, sort of gives theists material. Otherwise what would they have? Choice A) humans are gullible, people fabricated a story, legends accumulate, etc. (all things we know are very common), versus: Choise B) something we know is impossible, violates the laws of nature, etc. It's a freakin slam dunk (and to get mired in anything else, is precisely the sort of quagmire that apologists love to shift the debate to, quibbling over bullshit like this is all they have).

This is the type of thing that actually is reasonably debateable, and it's just the type of distraction that apologists feed off of.

mountainman

That's reasonable.

What evidence precisely are you pointing at?