Toto

I don't intend to invest in that book. He must have revised it from the original Evidence that was critiqued on this site {<a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/index.shtml" target="_blank">The Jury Is In</a>}. At least he's no longer claiming that there is more evidence for Jesus than for Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Lowder has critiqued the New Evidence in <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/newetdav.html" target="_blank">Evidence that Demands a Refund</a>.

McFall puts the best possible spin on evidence that there was a historic Jesus. But if you look at that evidence with even a small amount of skepticism, it all dissolves into myth, hearsay and possible forgery. You may decide that there probably was a Jesus, but you could not be confident of that decision, and you could not be confident as to when he was born or died or much of anything else.

Sojourner553

Seems to me about 100% of Christians think Jesus was historical (as well as divine)

Jews and Atheists are probably split pretty evenly (maybe 50%) over the issue of whether Jesus was originally a historical person around whom myths were made.

I do think Intensity should steer away from controversies that are very divisive even among atheists IF he expects to really do well in his future debates with theists!! Proclaiming certainty WHERE NONE EXISTS won't win you many converts -- but will more likely convince the other side that there are as many dogmatic atheists as Christians (which they will interpret to mean it is "ok" for Christians to be dogmatic too).

If that means "politics" to you -- fine!

To me, there is a lot firmer ground to state: virtually nothing is known of a historical Jesus
and that many of the myths that later surrounded the "Christ" concept are virtually the same as can be found in contemporary religions of this time -- including Mithraism.


Sojourner

[ July 07, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]

[ July 07, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Iasion

Greetings IntenSity et al,

thanks for your comments, it is pleasing to see more and more people investigate the evidence them selves - for so many centuries the facts were locked away or lost in unknown manuscripts.

Sorry I haven't been posting here much - its been very busy - and I should not have lost my temper with that apologist's rants...


I am so looking forward to the 60 minutes Expose' on Jesus (for example)

"The Shocking Facts Revealed !
was Jesus actually a myth?
is Christianity based on mere stories?
Find out, on 60 minutes .. tonight at 7:30..
tick, tick, tick, tick ... "

I am sure such a show will be happening within a year or two .. its too juicy to ignore...


by the way ..
people keep calling me an "atheist" -
wrong -
I believe in God,
and I'm a pagan Gnostic Christian


Quentin David Jones

Ted Hoffman

Clutch
So I wonder whether the motivation for the Mythers isn't a somewhat misplaced concern that granting a historical Jesus (who needn't even have been called "Jesus"!) is too great a concession to Christianity.
Whatever the case, you simply have to support your assertions. Appeal to motive is a very weak argument given you cant read peoples' minds.

But the postulation of some actual person provides a mechanism for the origin of such stories; it's an inference to a reasonable explanation. And it carries virtually *no* commitment to verisimilitude.
The reasonable explanation is that No such man as Jesus existed, even though there could have been many men called Jesus.
Unless you would like to explain why we should believe he actually existed.

Diana
For the record, I hold that, while there may have been an actual person upon whom the Xn Jesus was based, there is no evidence which suggests this and it's all speculation, at best. To suggest otherwise is equivalent to arguing that since an entire myth structure grew up around the idea of Zeus, there must have been a real person behind it.
I couldnt have put it better than that. Thank you.

The Lost Number

"C.E. 4-97
Apollonius of Tyana was a philosopher and mystic contemporary with Jesus (and rather similar to him) who travelled widely and was revered even by Roman Emperors- his words and teachings were recorded by his disciple Damis (our information comes from Philostratus c.220) - from what we know he apparently had no knowledge of Jesus, his teachings, or his followers."
Lost Number: Assuming his "words and teachings" are really his and recorded accurately; Apollonius of Tyana concerned himself with relevant religions, most notably pagan ones. A(n at that time) trivial, non-pagan cult like Christianity would not have been very relevant to him, and so he wouldn't mention Jesus.

First of all, what you have picked to debunk is not one of my "reasons". This example does not stand on its own. I have listed a number of other writers/ scholars/ poets to make one point/ reason. That is the point you should have refuted. To pick one reason in isolation is actually a strawman because my case is cumulative.
Appolonius is one of the people one would have expected to mention Jesus (through Damis) because they were contemporaries (or rivals).
But okay, lets see what your rebuttal amounts to.
You say "... trivial, non-pagan cult like Christianity would not have been very relevant to him, and so he wouldn't mention Jesus."
I say its because Christianity at the time either did not exist or was a cult of people who were considered "insane". The historical Jesus was constructed later. My reason still stands. You have merely supported my argument that there was no historical Jesus behind that pagan cult.
No refutation so far.

No, but when an embarrasment in a myth is directly in contradiction with it's teachings, or is one of the foundations of such, that is room for wondering if that event or something like it really did happen, as such a humiliating story doesn't have much reason for being just made up.
It can be explained that the baptism by John the Baptist was meant to mark the beginning of Jesus' mission (not to clear his sins). In any case, it was also representative of JBap was passing on the baton after acting as the harbinger. Whether or not it is embarrasing depends on the point of view one chooses. Since other evangelists have excluded the baptism scene, it only means the evangelist who included it did not find it embarrasing or if he did, it wasn't embarrasing enough to exclude.

Therefore this embarrasment criterion is very weak because it is based on the point of view one chooses. Besides, its a case of projecting 20th Century thinking back to the early centuries. My bet is that they (even the people who canonised the gospels) could not see through the fog of myth and pick out the embarrasing parts. Otherwise, Marks gospel today could have been an apocryphal gospel.

I have also read your response to Vorkosigans questions and its clear you have prevaricated and you have not explained whether or not Jesus' baptism is embarrasing to Mark. You have cited ignorance on the part of the evangelists but you have refuted your own argument in the process: it means they were making the stories up. Why does anyone need knowledge of christian traditions when narrating what happened? He is supposed to be saying what happened, NOT what should have happened (which requires knowledge).

RyanS2
However, it was worse than formal education, they didn't understand basic parables, the actual teachings of Jesus were admittedly misunderstood by the disciples unless Jesus spelled them out for them. Isn't that embarrasing for a new religion?
I do not find it embarrasing. I find it nonsensical because Jesus spelled it out (the sequence of events that would precede his crucifixon) and yet they still could not believe or understand that he had resurrected when the "women" told them. Even after seeing the "shroud" in the empty tomb, they still could not understand. That is complete hokum, unless we are willing to believe the disciples were idiots.
And there are a lot of nonsensical events and ideas in the NT.

As a question, does this establish the authenticity of that being true, or does it tell us that Mark didn't like the other disciples, or that it was just part of an imitation of Homer's play and the ineptness of Oddyseus companions?
I would go for the latter possibility.

Radcliffe Emerson , and Shinobi
Thank you and I am glad we have reached this "level".

Sojourner553

Oh God, I am aghast that you have posted the testimonium flavianum. For the record, let me demonstrate why it is unacceptable as evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus.
First of all By your own admission and by Origens' evidence, Josephus could not have called christ the messiah. It is very unlikely that Josephus could have recognized Jesus as the messiah because Josephus was a devout messianic Jew who never converted to Christianity and he was writing at the end of the first century, at a time when the schism between Judaism and Christianity was becoming very deep and very emotional on both sides. He could never have called the Christian religion “the truth” or referred to Jesus as “the messiah”.

This serves to cast a shadow of doubt about the authenticity of the Testimonium flavianum.
As to: [I]"Various scholars have shown that if certain "pro-Christian" passages are
removed, then the text reads more like a detached formal reporting of the situation. [I]
This amounts to tampering with evidence. I don't find it acceptable. And if it is acceptable, we all can contrive various versions of the passage to suit our own agendas. Then it would be completely useless.

SecondlyOrigen (Origenes Adamantius), one of the most distinguished of the Fathers of the early Church made it quite clear, in two different passages, that in his text of the Antiquities Josephus did not represent Jesus as the Christ (Origen - Matthew X, XVII). Robert Eisler (a Christian Scholar), in The Messiah Jesus and John the Baptist covers this point extensively.

Thirdly
Some scholars like Ken Oslon in Eusebian Fabrication of the Testimonium Flavianum have attributed the Josephus passage to Eusebius Pamphili, Bishop of Cæsarea the "Father of Church History" (240-361). Eusebius quoted the Testimonium in three of his works: the Demonstratio Evangelica, the Historia Ecclesiastica, and the Theophany. His purpose in quoting it in each case is to use Josephus as a witness to Jesus' good character in order to refute Jewish and pagan accusations against Jesus. In particular, Eusebius is concerned to refute the charge that Jesus was a GOHS, a term that can be translated as "charlatan" or "wizard" or "deceiver."
A comparison of groups of words used together, such as a noun or verb with its modifiers, showed that there are three such groups found in the Testimonium that are not paralleled elsewhere in Josephus but are found in Eusebius, and two such groups found elsewhere in Josephus but not in Eusebius.
The agreements between the version of the Testimonium found in Antiquities 18 and that found in the Historia Ecclesiastica against the version found in the Demonstratio Evangelica show that it was the Historia's version that Christian scribes interpolated into our texts of Josephus.

The scribes on Eusebius' authority that the Antiquities ought to contain such a text and "corrected" their texts according to the reading found in the Historia Ecclesiastica. The version of the Testimonium found in our texts of the Antiquities is the Eusebian version, and, if there ever was a Josephan version, that fact remains to be demonstrated.
There is nothing in the language or content of the Testimonium, as it appears in the Demonstratio Evangelica, that suggests it is anything other than a completely Eusebian composition.

The fact is that (a) Eusebius had an agenda, (b) his rectitude was questionable (he wrote that he unscrupulously suppressed all that would be a disgrace to early Christianity. Ecclesiastical History, vol. 8, c.21. he also relates as truth a ridiculous story of writing a letter to Jesus the Christ and then receiving an answer. Ecclesiastical History, vol. 1, c. 13.), (c) the Testimonium suited Eusebius’ agenda perfectly, (d) he had the authority to get the changes made in Jospehus’ works, and (e) the literary constructions (style, composition, word choice, word arrangement, phraseology etc.) and other forms of textual comparisons between his works and those of Josephus indicate that the Testimonium was a Eusebian passage.

Fourthly
Although the church fathers were quite fond of quoting passages which supported Christianity, and though these early church fathers were quite familiar with the works of Josephus, not one of them quotes this passage in defense of Christianity until Eusebius does in the fourth century. This means it was a later insertion
**Justin Martyr (circa C.E. 100-165) never once quoted this passage -- even in the face of charges that Christians had "invented some sort of Christ for themselves" and that they had accepted "a futile rumor" (Dialogue with Trypho 8; circa C.E. 135).

**Origen (circa C.E. 185-254), who in his own writings relies extensively upon the works of Josephus, does not mention this passage or any other passage in Josephus that mentions Christ.

**Jerome (circa C.E. 347-420) cites Josephus 90 times, but never once cites the Testimonium. Perhaps it was added later?

The first mention of the Testimonium is by Eusebius (who died about C.E. 361), and a full century passes (including, most notably, the era of Augustine [C.E. 354-430]) before it is again mentioned by a Church Father.

Fifthly

The passage comes in the middle of a collection of stories about calamities- which had befallen the Jews. This would not be a calamity thus it is out of context in the book. This is another indication that it is an interpolation.

Sixthly
Another indication of falsity is the phrase “…He drew over to him many Jews, and also many of the Greeks…”. Some reconstructions (obviously by Christian scholars) have it as “…He drew over to him many Jews, and also many of the Gentiles…”. The Greeks were gentiles so I will move right on.
The reference to "Gentiles" or “Greeks” so far as Jesus himself goes is clearly false. There were no "Gentiles" among the inner circle of Jesus, and if the New Testament itself is to be believed, Jesus avoided staying in the company of Gentiles. It was St. Paul who attempted to expand the sect of Christianity beyond the Jewish community within which it was founded, and that desire by St. Paul led to his great disagreement with "James, the brother of Jesus." (See, e.g., Chapter 2 of the book of Galatians.)
So, the Testimonium clearly relates a second-hand perspective of Christianity, even if you take it at its word. Josephus is writing after the death of St. Paul, and is relating a perspective on Christianity that is peculiarly Paulene. So, even if the passage is entirely authentic (i.e., even if Josephus actually wrote that passage when he wrote Antiquities), the passage still merely repeats Paulene Christian theology and doesn't provide any actual evidence for the historiocity of Jesus (who was, after all, dead at the time when St. Paul converted to Christianity).

In the Arabic work, called the BOOK OF THE TITLE. The author Agapius was a tenth century Christian Arab and bishop in Asia Minor, who read Josephus' work and translated his early source into Arabic.
Agapius was merely copying fabricated work. so his "testimony" fails for the same reasons as the Testimonium Flavianum.

Thus we lay the testimonium Flavianum to eternal rest

Vorkosigan
I do not maintain that Jesus was a myth, but rather that the gospel stories of him are, just as the stories of Roland do not reflect the real Roland, or the stories of Robin Hood reflect some real thief. All are composites drawn from multiple sources.
On what Do you base your historical Jesus?

Sojourner

book 20 Chapter 9 in "Antiquities of the Jews" where it is stated:

"Festus was now dead, and Albinius was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some other, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned"
From this passage,

*Does James appear in the NT scriptures?
*Is he the one killed by Herod in Acts 12:1-2?
*Who was Albinius - what were his intentions and authority?
* who stoned them? what laws did James et al break? was stoning the correct punishment for law-breakers at that time in that region?

I would appreciate some answers (from anyone with the info) before I can engage in discussing the passage.

Professor Edwin Yamauchi asserts that we have more and better historical documentation for Jesus than for any other religious founder (e.g., Zoroaster, Buddha, or Mohammed)..."
Historical documentation of a myth does not transform the myth to fact. Does Yamauchi regard Jesus as an ordinary man, a healer, a Rabbi or a preacher?

Isn't it more important to FOCUS on whether Jesus was a god or not since it cannot be ABSOLUTELY 100% proven that Jesus is not historical...
Nothing can be proven absolutely 100% (whatever that means).
So this is not an argument.

Peter Kirby

**Jerome (circa C.E. 347-420) cites Josephus 90 times, but never once cites the Testimonium. Perhaps it was added later?

Jerome writes after Eusebius and quotes a Testimonium in Illustrious Men, ch. 13.

He wrote also concerning the Lord after this fashion: "In this same time was Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be lawful to call him man. For he was a worker of wonderful miracles, and a teacher of those who freely receive the truth. He had very many adherents also, both of the Jews and of the Gentiles, and was believed to be Christ, and when through the envy of our chief men Pilate had crucified him, nevertheless those who had loved him at first continued to the end, for he appeared to them the third day alive. Many things, both these and other wonderful things are in the songs of the prophets who prophesied concerning him and the sect of Christians, so named from Him, exists to the present day."

This is the first citation of a form of the Testimonium after Eusebius' three quotes in the fourth century.

best,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

Peter Kirby,
Hi. I consider you a giant as far as biblical Criticism and history is concerned. Keep up the excellent work!

I don't exactly get the purpose of your post - did you mean to point out an error I had made or you just wanted to add more info?

Peter Kirby

A little bit of both, I guess. I just wanted people to know that Jerome quotes the Testimonium.

best,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

Sojourner
My point again was that there are both Jewish and atheist scholars who think Josephus' writings does present evidence there was a historical personnage named Jesus. So for anyone to argue this is really a black vs white issue is just setting them up for loosing probably the WHOLE debate.
Huh, huh, huh. What's this - argumentum ad intimidatum?
Make your argument (assuming you have one), threats of failure don't add up to much and they dont strengthen your position on the issue.

I do think Intensity should steer away from controversies that are very divisive even among atheists IF he expects to really do well in his future debates with theists!!
Again???!!! Oh no. And what makes you think I want to do well in my future debates with theists?
If atheists are divisive over the matter, why should I tiptoe around it? Keeping the atheistic community well-knit is not one of my agendas.

Proclaiming certainty WHERE NONE EXISTS won't win you many converts -- but will more likely convince the other side that there are as many dogmatic atheists as Christians (which they will interpret to mean it is "ok" for Christians to be dogmatic too).
It is dogmatic to be a christian because christianity is based on Dogma. Not on reason or fact. But thats another issue.
If they choose to base their theology on the tu quoque fallacy, thats too bad for them. I would expect them to do what they believe is right and not copy what others are doing.
I did not proclaim certainty. I proclaimed confidence.

To me, there is a lot firmer ground to state: virtually nothing is known of a historical Jesus
Why then should we believe he existed?

and that many of the myths that later surrounded the "Christ" concept are virtually the same as can be found in contemporary religions of this time -- including Mithraism.
Any religion based on a myth retains as much value, in the realm of actual things, as the myth .

PeterKirby
A little bit of both, I guess. I just wanted people to know that Jerome quotes the Testimonium.
Oops, thats a huge error on my part. I apologise.
However, let me add that Jerome's Latin version has the insertion but it is less assertive, rendering He was the Messiah by He was believed to be the Messiah.

Doesn't that mean that the passage was altered?
And Oh, I found this: The phrase
"He was believed to be the Christ "
appears only in Jerome's Latin version of the TF, written some seventy years after 'The History of the Church'. Jerome's TF has also some other noticeable differences with Eusebius' one:
" ... He had many followers , both of the Jews and of the Gentiles :-he was believed to be Christ. And then by the envy of our principal men ... and other [here, Jerome dropped " ten thousand "] wonderful things concerning him ..."
But then, that should not be surprising since many early quotes of the TF are different from the one in 'Antiquities'.
Jerome deleted "ten thousand" but added up Jesus' death was caused " by the envy " of the "principal men" (explaining the cause of his crucifixion: obviously some "coloring" by Jerome, who declared before: "Christ was slain by the Pharisees, on account of the greatness of his miracles).
That proves Jerome did more than a translation and likely used the opportunity to remove "he was Christ" (and "ten thousand"), deemed highly suspicious. The replacement, "he was believed to be the Christ" , was certainly more believable as being written by Josephus. And then, according to Wm. Whiston, and forty years earlier, another Christian Father quoted a TF, which does not have 'Christ' in it.

From all this, one can deduce that TF has really metamorphosized over the ages - right?
This <a href="http://www.concentric.net/~Mullerb/appe.shtml" target="_blank">Site </a> has got lots on TF.

[ July 08, 2002: Message edited by: IntenSity ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

And Oh regarding
...Jesus, who was called Christ"

Isn't this a Eusebian phrase?

CX

Not this time, I'm afraid. I have little or no interest in "Jesus as myth" discussions. Since it's clear Jesus did not exist exactly as described in the Gospels and since there is no other evidence of any substance regarding Jesus I submit that we can say little or nothing about an historical Jesus. I don't find it especially extraordinary that such a person should have lived, but it adds little to the questions which interest me. I'm not a "Jesus myther", but I am HJ agnostic. I don't think we can say one way or the other wether Jesus existed as an actual historical figure.