Tercel

Isn't that rather splitting hairs? I'm not into playing word games. A person who writes history is a historian. Tacitus wrote history => Tacitus was a historian. Yes he did other things in his life, but so do most people.

If you are objecting to my saying it was his "job": I was meaning that it is the aim/duty of historians to write accurate history. (Ignoring here the possibility of deliberate propaganda) I was not meaning that being a historian was literally Tacitus' job insofar as meaning it was his primary method of earning income etc.

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Peter Kirby

I have not split hairs. Saying that it was the job of Tacitus to get things right in writing history makes Tacitus out to be some kind of slave boy to historical accuracy. Tacitus was an affluent politician who was under no obligation in his writings to verify personally each and every incidental factoid that he relates.

Here is another argument. Earl Doherty has written about the history of early Christianity. Therefore, Earl Doherty is a historian. It is the job of a historian to get things right centuries after the events. Therefore, Earl Doherty is right about early Christianity. Earl Doherty's history says that there was no Jesus. Therefore, there was no Jesus.

Therefore, there was a Jesus (so Tacitus) and there was no Jesus (so Doherty), which is a contradiction, which means that a premise is false: precisely the premise which says that every person who writes history in his spare time always gets things right despite a wide gap in time between the time of writing and the events.

best,
Peter Kirby

Tercel

Iasion,

That's a point? Celsus, an anti-Christian writer, regards Christian miracle stories as "fiction" and "myth". Wow... how suprising...
How does this constitute any sort of point for your argument?

Celsus work was banned by later Christian Emperors primarily because it was heretical, not due to any particularly merit of its own.
Even if your suggestions are true, it provides no support for your thesis.-Just because his book was damaging doesn't make it accurate.

I don't think you understand the problems of your argument here.

You assume the Gospels are not in the first twenty-one documents of Christianity.
This assumption renders your argument circular. "The first twenty-one document of Christianity do not mention Jesus." Why? Because you've late-dated those that do. This leaves you with evidence that shows exactly what you've tailored it to show.
The first twenty-one documents of Christianity as far as the standard dating by mainstream scholarship goes include four accounts of the human life of Jesus.
You also need to pull in the special pleading in order to account for Paul's references to the historical Jesus:
Romans 1:3
1 Corinthians 11:23-25
1 Corinthians 15:4
Galations 1:19
Galations 4:4
1 Thessalonians 2:14-16

So what do you have here? Basically you've trimmed the evidence to suit your hypothesis. You've used an extremely bad argument from silence (if you actually looked carefully at what the required premises are for an argument from silence and why you're not supporting them sufficiently, you might understand just how bad it is) in order to try and late date the gospels in the face of all mainline scholarship. You've called in special pleading to explain away anything else that doesn't suit your hypothesis.
Having explained the evidence away the evidence does exist you have the... arrogance/stupidity (I don't know quite what to call it)... to ask where the evidence for the historical Jesus is and then argue from "silence" of all things!

The only thing you have that comes even remotely close to an argument is the silence of Justus of Tiberias and Philo. If you want to be taken seriously, try constructing a sound argument from silence (use my points in my previous post as guidelines) with regard to these two writers carefully substantiating each premise. That would at least demonstrate your ability to use basic logic and you possibly might even get your argument taken seriously.

The point is that you cannot disprove such a theory. The very possibility that it might be true greatly undermines premise 2 (Had X known about Y they would have written about it).
Furthermore my suggested hypothesis seems very likely to be true. Consider if the historical Jesus had existed. All the NT epistles are written from Christians to Christians. If knowledge of the historical Jesus was a basic Christian belief, the writers would most likely assume that their readers already had such knowledge and not bother telling their readers what they already knew. At most the writer might occasionally mention tiny snippets that relate to the point. (which is what Paul does)

No, I am presenting alternative hypotheses which equally well (if not better) explain the supposed silences. This is in an effort to demonstrate to you how weak your argument is. You have arbitrarily latched on to "Jesus didn't exist" as the only reasonable explanation for the evidence as you see it. My case is that not only is the evidence as you see it not the real state of the evidence, but that alternative equally plausible explanations involving the existence of Jesus can explain the evidence as you see it. ie You are wrong about the evidence, and even were you right about that your conclusion would still not be even remotely certain.

The consenus of qualified scholars is that four of the first 21 extant documents record the life, teachings and death of the historical Jesus. There are 6 separate references by Paul that seem to refer to an earthly Jesus. Plus the historians Josephus and Tacitus refer to Jesus. That is the state of the evidence. To get to your supposed view of the evidence you have have to explain why the obvious interpretations and scholarly concensuses regarding all these references are wrong.
You can wave the magic wand of special-pleading all you like but it doesn't make your case credible...

Tercel

[ July 01, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Tercel

Really? Well that was certainly not the intended meaning.

Agreed. However the comparatively short time of only ~80 years between Jesus and Tacitus would seem to give good reason for accepting the passage at face value. Consider if a person wrote today a history which included events from WWI. That is similarly ~80 years ago, yet no sane person would imagine events related in such a history to be non-factual or mistaken unless they had reason to do so. There would be but one word to describe a Scholar in 4000AD who doubted without good reason the accuracy of a historian writing on WWI ~80 years later: Stupid.

Very funny. Earl Doherty has written about history, not written a history: He is a scholar not a historian. And "centuries" is hardly equivalent to 80 years.
And Earl Doherty could be considered more than a little biased, whereas it certainly seems unlikely that Tacitus was biased towards Christianity.

And no, I'm not saying that historians can't make mistakes or get things wrong. However suspecting a historian of being wrong solely on the grounds of wishing that what he wrote wasn't true is...

That's an impressive elaboration of a misconstrual of a couple of my words into an entire argument I didn't make. Well done.

[ July 01, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

Iasion

Greetings all,

Hmm...
Do you have trouble understanding English?

I argue that the Gospels are fiction, based on myth.

A famous writer of the period when the Gospels come to light claims the Gospels are "fiction" and "based on myth".

But you can't see how these words, stating exactly what I argue, support my point?

I conclude you are an idiot.


Furthermore,
you dismiss Celsus' criticism because he is "anti-Christian" ...

in other words,
all anti-Christian writings should be dismissed BECAUSE they are anti-Christian...

in other words,
Christianity is all true, anti-Christians are all false.

This is patently nothing more than Christian apologetics, based on prior belief, not facts - such a view is fully supported by your irrational and emotional posts.

It seems you have swallowed everything the priests have told you - your understanding of the evidence seems to be based on nothing more than those handy pamphlets found in the church vestry.

I am sure the others here will understand if I waste no more time on this apologist nonsense.

Quentin David Jones

Tercel

Not that I am aware of. Though I'm not the world's best at speling , nevertheless I consider myself fairly adept in general at using the language.

Your argument is that the entirity of the Gospels are fictional, containing no historical truths.
Celsus clearly does not argue anything of the sort.

These words do not support your argument. Your argument is that Jesus himself never lived and that his entire life is fictional. Celsus argues that Jesus was a real person, who had an illegitimate birth by a Roman soldier and that the Virgin Birth is a cover-up story to conceal Jesus' illegitimate birth. He argues that Jesus trained in Egypt as a magician and was thus able to do his supposed "miracles".
In every way Celsus regards Jesus as a real historical figure, which is completely and utterly contrary to your argument.

That's not true at all.
I happen to think Christianity is true, but it isn't because I dismiss anti-Christian writers out of hand.

Try dealing with the arguments I presented instead of retreating to ad hominems.
It is the scholarly consensus that the four Gospels should be dated to the first century. Is that Christian apologetics? I pointed out 6 references of Paul to an eartly Jesus. Is that Christian apologetics? It is the scholarly consensus that Josephus refered to Jesus. Is that Christian apologetics? Tacitus certainly seems to think of Christ as a real person. Is that Christian apologetics?

I'd only need to resort to Christian Apologetics if you actually presented some actual evidence for your case.
The priests haven't told me anything. I have not read any "handy pamphlets" on this subject. What I know comes from observing debates here, plus my own reading of scholars.

Tercel

[ July 03, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>