That has been asked and answered.
Wait, that says it was written in “the Hebrew language”, what language is that? What language would have been used in Judea at that time? And why would Pilate’s original death warrant not be in Latin?
I am seriously, flatly, and furiously stating that using ridiculous faked evidence demeans you and your cause, whatever the subject.
The problem is that the locale where Jesus lived was convulsed by revolution and laid waste 40 years after and again a century later. The Romans trashed Jerusalem, and the temple, and a number of other cities in Judea. Any possible local record, and a lot of people who would be impartial reporters, would have been lost in the mess.
The existence and death of Jesus was not significant news at the time, so unlikely to have been worthy of mention outside the area. Notice that a lot of what we know of the time is almost exclusively from Josephus. The Romans were unlikely to note much of the internal politics and minor problems outside of their direct administration. Do we, for example, know anything about John the Baptist outside of the gospels and Josephus?
Jesus likely did not merit mention until the cult became significant enough to come to the notice of authorities, somewhere after 100AD.
Just to be pedantic, Luke was allegedly a Greek, or educated in Greek, living in Syria. He probably falls in the category of one of the first people to try to collect and detail what he could from “more direct” sources within living memory of Jesus’ time.
Plus, the story makes no sense for a “made up” character. Certainly miracles, virgin births, angels announcing the birth, flights into Egypt, etc. have the hallmarks of later embellishments; but the full arc of his life and death suggest a real story. A totally fictitious character, it seems to me, would have a much less humble life. Why stop halfway? Instead of a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, why not have him take over, toss out the high priests, and be overrun by the legions and then dragged off to a crucifixion?
Indeed it has, by the Master himself:
Still, barring an actual conspiracy, 40 years is too short a time for an entirely mythical Christ to have been fabricated out of (heh-heh) whole cloth. (See below.) Certainly the non-Christians who wrote about him in the years following his putative death did not doubt he had once lived. The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in his Annals around 110 AD, mentions one “Christ, whom the procurator Pontius Pilate had executed in the reign of Tiberius.” The Jewish historian Josephus remarks on the stoning of “James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ.” The Talmud, a collection of Jewish writings, also refers to Christ, although it says he was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier called Panther. Doubts about the historicity of Christ did not surface until the 18th century. In short, whether or not JC was truly the Son of God, he was probably the son of somebody.
Altho the warrant is quite dubious, whoever faked it (?) got most of the details right. It’s not really supposed to be the Roman official death sentence Document, but a notice sent out to the various “Hebrew” tribes.
This is not a “Pious forgery” but the original (if there ever was one) has been lost, so we can’t examine it for legitimacy.
I have serious doubts myself.:dubious: Still, it’s not dismissible simply due to it’s language.
Actually, it could be dismissible due to the language. If it can be shown that these type of notices were not sent out in the native languages during this time period, then it was be further evidence of fraud.
I’m not a scholar but the idea of a notice being sent the the twelve tribes also seems quite unlikely and not something the Romans would do.
Then there is the problem of the word “thieves” which comes from the Greek word Lestes. A more accurate translation would be robber or bandit, and was used as a general term to describe malefactors. A translation from Latin to Aramaic would not make this same mistake.
Sure. IF . Nor does it say “ twelve tribes” anywhere on the actual document (on the back of the plate it does say ‘A similar plate is sent to each tribe.’ , but it doesn’t say “twelve” and it’s a translation of a translation, so the original word might have been quite different). Nor does the cite original word for “thieves’ was used on the plate, so you can’t say there was a mistake. This is simply a English translation, and for that “thieves” works fine.
Your attempt here falls very flat.
Mind you, since there is no original or providence, I suspect a fake. But I can’t see anything in the *translated language that woudl have it dismissed out of hand. They get the Roman titles correctly, as far a translation goes, etc. Mind you, if we had the original text, many things would become plain, and likely a decent scholar could dismiss it. However, no one has at this point in time, likely because we don’t have the original.
Without the original all we can say is 'doubtful".
- we now know Pilate’s actual title was Prefect. But a casual transalation into English of that word could well be “Governor”.
Jesus existed the same way Harry Potter existed.
This is Harry Potter:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3153182464/nm0705356?ref_=nm_ov_ph
In the same way that the ACTUAL Jesus was some itinerant Jewish, end of days preacher.
This is Harry Potter:
http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11111/111114101/3176173-1748009911-hp.jp.jpg
In the same way Jesus is as described in the bible, so too is Daniel RadCliffe Harry Potter. Well, more or less. The main difference being that Daniel knew he was playing a role, Jesus probably did not know the role he would eventually play.
That the Jesus myth described in the bible was inspired by one or more such preachers in that place and that time, I think is a safe bet. That most of what the bible says he did, said, and lived has ANY semblance in reality - that’s not such a safe bet.
Damned time out.
So my question is: does it matter? Even if there WAS a historical Jesus that could be tracked down as the original inspiration for the stories in the bible, pointing to him and calling him the Jesus of the bible would be as ridiculous as pointing to Radcliffe and claiming him to be Harry Potter.
Well, with any great historical figure, myths & legends grow until the original is almost concealed by the Myths & legends. Take Geo. Washington- do you doubt he was real? Yes, there are many Myths & legends about him which are likely false- Cherry tree, dollar over Potomac, etc. So, 99% real, 1% legend. Then going back to King David. It now appears there was some “King” by that name, but 99% of what we know is either Myth, legend, or religious history. 1% real, 99% legend. Jesus is somewhere in between, but yes, more myth than man.
It mostly seems to matter to diehard proselytizing atheists who feel a need to “prove’ Jesus never existed, thus the religion is false. :rolleyes: Since religion is based upon faith, this is fruitless.
But since Jesus is a critical historical figure, it would be nice to nail down what historical documents we have of him. Oddly, the pious editor who changed one of Josephus’s history did more to hurt his own faith than he helped. Even if the mention was dismissive or critical of Jesus it would have been far better to leave it ‘as is”. sigh.
This is the point. If there was a Jesus - most likely - and he was a wandering preacher/holy man, and he became the focus of a local cult after he was executed for challenging or annoying the local priestly ruling class - well then are you not basically agreeing that he was real?
The myths and embellishments - virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and probably a few of the iconic moments of the gospels likely were just that - myths and embellishments. The desire of his followers to add stature to his life, and then the embellishments of Saul/Paul to spread the message even further into the gentile world, probably added to the myths.
But nothing rings untrue about the basic life - minor nobody preacher who amassed a following and maybe collected crowds where he went, panicked the high preists when he arrived in Jerusalem one Passover to adoring crowds then ransacked the Temple merchants who likely contributed to the High Priests PAC funds… So they denounced him as a seditious rabble-rouser to the Romans.
If I were to make up a Harry-Potter-esque figure unconstrained by the limits of reality, his highs and lows would be a lot more like Harry Potter or Hercules or other grand myths.
Plus with a minor nobody preacher, it’s not surprising that very little shows in the historical record. How many other people did the Romans crucify in the middle east over that century?
What’s so unbelievable about even the very first president of the new Republic throwing away money as hard as he could? He basically set a precedent.
Paul’s epistle to Philemon is a very personal correspondence which mentions Jesus, and is almost universally acknowledged as authentically Pauline from the first century.
No, what we can actually say is “it’s completely fucking improbable” as it doesn’t match the culture, the norms or the situation.
Show me another single instance of something similar done for any other individual, other than this and we’ll talk.
And Paul was a Jew and not Greek or Roman. Hellenized, but still a Jew.
And Luke?
Was not a historian, although he was writing in the format of a history.
Erhman was very precise in his statement:
“In the entire first Christian century Jesus is not mentioned by a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!”
As noted several times in this thread, Erhman believes that the historical Jesus existed. The above quote was given in a debate with someone who was arguing for the historical accuracy of the Bible, and Erhman was pointing out that there just isn’t anything outside of the Bible in the first century which discusses Jesus.
I’m not aware of any serious New Testament historian who believe that there was not Jesus. And pretty much everyone I’ve read has been very cautious about what we can actually say about the historical Jesus. I want to say that the common ground is that there was a person named Jesus, mostly like baptized by John the Baptist, and was crucified by the Romans for either claiming or someone making the claim that he was a messiah figure, which would be treason under Roman law.
I think that most scholars believe he was some sort of miracle worker, none of the specifics can be really accepted as historical.
Just to be clear, Ehrman is counting Josephus, an obviously first century non-Christian source, as a Jewish source, distinct from Greek or Roman sources, even though Josephus wrote in Greek for a Greek and Roman audience. That’s how he arrives at the conclusion that only Christian and Jewish sources mention Jesus in the first century.
I’m not aware of a single serious Roman historian who denies a historical Jesus, either. I certainly don’t know all of them, but I am one. Serious Jesus denial would make a big splash.
As always, the problem is that Jesus is at least as well documented as other people from the same period whose existence we take for granted. If we seriously think that contemporary evidence for Jesus is inadequate, then much of the foundation of Roman history in general unravels. Privileging written sources like personal correspondence and inscriptions only bias our knowledge towards wealthy, educated people (mostly men) who could go to the trouble of preserving their personal papers or inscribing their words in stone. If this truly defines the limits of our knowledge, then social history is hopeless. Most people, Jesus probably included, didn’t have personal papers. His teachings appealed especially to the poor (who were only dimly perceived as their own social group in the first place), women, and slaves, the last sorts of people you would expect to leave documents of any kind.
Unfortunately, that means that if we deny Jesus, we deny most of the rest of Roman history as well. I’m a Jewish atheist, and I think he was as real as almost anyone else in the 1st century.
You are a Roman scholar? Cool! That would be really interesting. I’ve been listening to various podcasts by different historians, including Phil Harland’s Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean and Dale Martin’s Yale Open Course on the New Testament. I find it fascinating learning about the culture in which the events of early Christianity developed and how that helped shape the movement.
I’m an atheist as well, but grew up in a fundamentalist religion, being told that verses in the Bible meant “X, Y and Z” when in fact they were written to say something completely different.
Anyway personal experience aside, I don’t believe anyone seriously thinks that contemporary records are inadequate. As stated repeatedly in this thread, Erhman’s statement was made in a debate with a theist, and needs to be read in that light.
Certainly there are a number of ardent atheists who would love to “prove” that Jesus didn’t exist, as it would seemingly help their cause, but that seems to be wishful thinking. The differences between a historical Jesus and the Christ of the New Testament, especially in John and other books with high Christology, are a separate debate.