Which writings? And what does “widely held” mean, “held by atheists”? The passage cited by Cecil is not the controversial Testimonium Flavianum, but a later passage:
“[So] he [Ananus, son of Ananus the high priest] assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before him the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others (or some of his companions) and when he had formed an accusation against them, he delivered them to be stoned.” — Antiquities 20.9.1
Yet even the controversial passage from Antiquities 18.63-64, when mutilated to their own satisfaction by wreckless skeptics at Infidels.org, still makes mention of Jesus, although they would like to have authors peg Him as a somewhat lecherous media whore. There, people who “widely hold” your view prattle about such things as how a Pharisaic Jew was unlikely to compliment Jesus in any way, which is patently ridiculous especially considering the fact that Joseph of Arimathea (who gave the tomb for Jesus’ burial), Nicodemus (who sought Jesus’ advice on spiritual matters), and even most likely Jesus Himself were Pharisees.
I haven’t heard Zev or Chaim or any other Jew here say anything even remotely hateful toward Jesus. Why Infidels insist that Jews must of necessity despise Jesus (and write that they do) is bizarre and bewildering.
Tacitus wrote
“[Christians] derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate” — Annals 15.44
The good folks at Infidels, of course, wonder whether Christians doctored the passage, but lacking evidence of that, grumble that he must have been writing only what Christians told him to write. Apparently, they have evidence that he was a weak-willed and grovelling man, though they don’t present it.
According to Gordon Stein at Infidels, in his scathing and desultory philippic, most of the references to Jesus in Talmudic writings were likely removed due to fear of persecution by Christians. Stein’s opinion seems to be that whatever might have been written about Jesus anywhere by anyone not Christian must of necessity have been derisive. “If we look at the materials concerning Jesus,” says Stein, “which had been removed from the later copies of the Talmud, we can see that they say that he was a bastard and a magician who learned magic spells in Egypt or else stole the secret name of God from the temple and used it to work magic or miracles. The father of Jesus is also claimed to be a soldier named Pantera.”
You know, it is remarkable that, when sources are filtered through such blatantly prejudiced and agenda-driven eyes by those who “widely hold” these things, anything at all remains. And yet it does.
First of all, that does not follow. People of other beliefs are not automatically of other religions – as you yourself tacitly admit, since you say that you want to hear differing opinions from other Christians.
And second, in the snippet which I quoted, I was clearly using “believer” to mean Christians. The fact that you chose to use the term differently in your response, without any clarification, indicates a malformed response on your part.
And finally, the point STILL remains — you are falsely stating that you have yet to hear from any of the Christians in this thread. I can abide error, but I have very little tolerance for such blatant misrepresentations.
I am willing to grant that your statement “the replies came from believers” might have merely been a misphrasing, rather than deliberate dishonesty – but your claim regarding the absence of Christian answers to your question is still abundantly false.
So the people with differing beliefs means people of other religions? Why, then, do you
My appologies, I didn’t specify which Josephus writing I was referring to when I said “widely held”. I was referring to 18.63-64 in which Josephus called Jesus “the Messiah” and claimed he rose from the dead and the prohpets prophisied about him doing miracles and such.
The only thing I find suspicious about the 20.9 verse is that James is referred to as brother of Jesus instead of Son of Joseph. I thought it was common in that era to refer to people as the latter.
Here you say (bolding mine)
then you say
Apparently it’s not that bizarre. And I don’t see Zev or Chaim getting into many discussions on Jesus at all. And I’ve never heard them say anything bad about anyone. Of course, I could say the same of you and Poly.
Whether or not it is doctored is not my problem with this source. My problem is using this in an arguement to say that Christ existed. The Christians existed, and they took their name from Christ. According to the story, he was sentenced to death under Pilate. Now the question is was he identifing the story of Jesus as it existed or did he have the record of Jesus’ trial and death.
Indeed, it does. I don’t know whether you’ve visited the modal ontology thread, but the honesty festival going on in there is the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen here at Great Debates. People (including me) have described the prejudices that they bring to the argument. It’s a beautiful and enlightening thing.
I admit getting a bit snippy with my rhetorical ejaculation above, but put yourself in my shoes. I’m just pretty tired of the tacit assumption on the part of some people that, because I am a man of faith, I have abandoned all reason and am some kind of fool who believes whatever I’m told by religion politicians.
I mean, look at what was said to me. It was the rhetorical equivalent of a back-handed slap:
Paraphrase: You unscrupulous dullard! Can’t you see that I’ve already posted?! If I’ve already posted, the matter is quite settled.
So, perhaps what was lost when the archives of the Sanhedrin were destroyed were the Sanhedrin’s statements to the effect that “Ha! Jesus of Nazareth didn’t rise from the dead: We’ve got the body right here!”, or even “What’s all this talk about ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ being the Messiah? We’ve checked the records; we never had anyone by that description put to death; in fact, as far as we can tell, he never even existed.” Or, alternatively, what might have been lost was the Sanhedrin’s official inquiry into how those tomb guards managed to let somebody slip past them and steal the body of the notorious executed rebel and blasphemer Jesus of Nazareth, and why are all his followers running around claiming to have had dinner with him?
In other words, we don’t know.
Look, what I’m objecting to is this line of argument by Libertarian:
Absence of evidence is not conclusive evidence of absence. But it’s hardly evidence of existence. If you want to argue that there is fact adequate evidence of Jesus’ existence that’s one thing; but this argument that the lack of official pronouncements on the matter constitutes evidence for Jesus’ historical existence is just kind of strange.
I’ve already explained in some detail why I raised the point, Buck, so I’ll just say, again, that there exist dozens of sources that attest to the historical existence of Jesus, and therefore the absence of official pronouncements to the contrary merely constitutes evidence that the sources are not a priori absurd.
Zev, I must learn to choose my words much more carefully or expound more on my thoughts. And don’t be afraid to disagree with me, I’m wrong alot! First of all, I rarely if ever visit GQ. Secondly, I should have been more specific when talking about your involvement in discussions. How’s this “Other than to clarify Judaic questions and viewpoints, Zev rarely gets invovled in Theological discussions of Jesus and Christianity.” Ok, maybe that still sucked, I am not the most eloquent of writers. And thirdly, I don’t think it was very fair going back so many years, DITWD was involved in those discussions for goodness sake!
I’ve been in similar shoes to yours Lib. And just because someone disagrees with you does not mean they neither value your opinion nor think any less of you. We are here to fight ignorance and in my case, I’m working on my own first. So when I post opposite views on something, many times it’s due to doubts I have on my own part. Personally, I think Jesus existed. But I find the opposite arguement fascinating. I’ve spent my years in the trenches so to speak. But I no longer fight that war, although I still enjoy discussions on it. So posting here with people like you and Poly and Tris, I get away from the “religion politicians” that I now loathe so much and get quite a different view of things. I didn’t think that presenting an opposite view point is equivalent to a back-handed slap, my apologies if you perceived it as such.
To the existance of Jesus or the existance of the followers of Jesus? To reference a group who believes in something does not mean that the object of their affection existed. There were others who built temples to Apollo, who fought sea monters on the way to the new world and who put on some Nike shoes and drank some laced vodka. This does not mean that Apollo existed, or ship wrecking sea monsters are real or that there are spaceships inside the comet Hale-Bopp.
There aren’t dozens of sources about Jesus. There are exactly 4 of them (5 if one want to include the late comments about who Jesus could have really been in Jewish texts):
-The christian texts, that I basically consider as totally unreliable, at the light of what people, even now, are able to write and believe about their guru of choice. Knowing that the story dates back to a time when informations weren’t circulating that much, that the origins and authors of the texts are unknown, that they’ve been selected, probably modified at latter dates, etc…I can’t take them at face value
-Suetonius, who recount Jewish revolts in Rome around 60, instigated be a guy named “Chrestos”. Since Jesus isn’t supposed to have lived in Rome, I assume he didn’t really understand what somedy told him, or that he was refering to another Jewish Messiah.
-Tacitus. He was writing about Nero, and only mentions the christians in passing. Honnestly, the most logical explanation seems to me that he was just writing what he knew about these christians, in other words what they told themselves. I’d have a hard time believing he carefully searched for mentions about this Jesus in 80 y.o. archives on the other side of the Mediterranean Sea just to write two lines about the christians.
-And Josephus, of course. I assume the part about Jesus being a worker of miracles and announced by the prophets is generally considered as a late christian addition, so I’m going to ignore it. We’re left with the “James, brother of Jesus, called the Christ”. Which is actually the only reference I consider as a possible independant source. Only possible, since some zelous copist could have added the “called christ” part to a mention of someone going by the name of Jesus…I’m extremely suspicious about texts concerning a faith which are handed to me by a believer, and, I think, with some good reasons.
That said, I don’t reject the hypothesis of a historical Jesus. But the hypothesis that several historical characters could have been mixed together or that the story of another very different historical character could have been thoroughly modified over the years, or that there has been no historical Jesus at all seems quite plausible to me too.
Some of the “no historical Jesus” (or a historical Jesus extremely different from the person we are told about in the gospels) hypothesis i’m aware of :
-The essanian “Master of Justice” (who would have been executed)
-Jesus ben Panthera, already mentionned in this thread
-Jesus ben Sira who would been the author of “wisdoms”
-The mystical “Angelos Christos”, appearing in early messianist beliefs, would have evolved into a full fleshed being named Jesus . The evidences given to support this thesis being that the authors of the earlier christian texts contain no reference to an actual human being, contrarily to the gospels.
-The main events recounted in the gospels and in some other christian texts (in particular the vision of Saul on the road of Damas) would have been derived by midrash from the Bible, hence would be propheties, and not originally a historical account.
That said, honnestly, I don’t think it’s a really important issue. Most hypothesis assume anyway that the origins of the christian religion are related to an actual Jewish rabbi or prophet or whatever you call him.
And of course, hoping that we’ll found someday (or believing that we were likely to find) a detailled independant account of the life of the umpteenth self-proclaimed prophet who lived in judea during the first century, let alone of the corporal punishment to which were subjected roman soldiers who fell asleep while guarding a tomb makes few sense.
The real issue would be “to which extent the life and the teachings of this guy were similar to what is written in the gospels?”. And it doesn’t seem this question can really be answered. Anyway, crucified under Pilatus or not, brother of a James or not, there would still be no evidences that this guy was a god, the son of a god or a third of a god.
I don’t claim that you must have abandoned reason for you to say some of the things you claim, but sometimes your arguments are unacceptable and will not fly, no matter how many attempts you make to recast the situation to something more favourable to your faith or position. We’ve gone over this before. I expect more honesty from you when discussing these issues.
Lib one fine day you will actually make an effort to address sensitive points honestly instead of of quoting your array of questionable sources and tangled arguments. I did address many of your elementary objections before you even posted them–that’s how elementary they were. It’s up to you to address posts; it’s not up to others to repeat themselves when you decide to ignore something you may not like or didn’t make an effort to read.
Either acknowledge the point or address the relevant arguments please! I have insufficient time for your moaning.
I disagree. Your list omits several sources, such as Pliny the Younger, Lucian of Samosata and Mara Bar-Serapion and the Babylonian Talmud. Moreover, your list also lumps the various New Testament sources – the gospel accounts AND the various epistles – all into one, despite their disparate authorships.
As for the “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” viewpoint, I think that’s oversimplifying. When the absence of evidence for one’s case is most conspicuous, it can present an argument against that case. To cite a comical example, there is no evidence of any widespread race of centaurs in Europe. While this does not automatically disprove the Greco-Roman myths, it does detract from their veracity.
Lib pointed out the absence of ancient writings which said, “These Christians are fools! Jesus never existed!” I believe his point is that the absence of such writings is most odd, if the ancients truly knew that there was no Christ. It would be like modern-day writers talking about Brigadoon, without ever mentioning (or hinting that) it is merely a place of fiction.
Objections to some of my previous posts seem to have been countered well by other posters, but just in case it isn’t clear, here is one of the fulcra upon which this argument revolves:
And this point has been raised before too: the “dozens of sources” you refer to consist of Christian propaganda not supported by any other (more historically reliable) source. I do not intend the term propaganda here to cause offence, however religious texts serve not just as religious guidance, but also as propaganda for the religion, obviously.
Clairobscur has listed other sources, and they’re not exactly legion. Generally speaking, apart from being few and far between, early sources of information on Jesus are hearsay. Unreliable anecdotal evidence under the circumstances, particularly when we consider the complete lack of corroborating evidence.
I brought up other popular myths such as Hercules (a popular choice because of some similarities to Christ) or Loki because, despite JThunder’s objections, the two cases are quite alike:
-They are both hypothetical, possibly imaginary beings with fantastic powers and even more fantastic histories.
-The only “direct” evidence for these beings resides exclusively in works that appear to be fabrications, i.e., there is no indication that the truth was being recorded; that’s important since stories were frequently passed on in oral tradition until they were eventually written down several years, decades, or centuries later.
-There is no reliable historical mention of such beings beyond the myths themselves and derivative works, which are questionable historical sources at best.
-Later evidence (such as Pliny the Younger) appears based on afore-mentioned works and hearsay (not history: hearsay). Or is just plain sketchy and vague.
-There is a lack of corroborating evidence outside of the material directly related to the myths, in spite of the fact that you would expect some to exist (the “darkness at noon” problem). The result is that so far there is no reliable historical evidence at all.
Of course Jesus and, e.g., Hercules are different in many other aspects, but as far as concerns the above they are very alike (please, JT, let’s not get into inane discussions about which aspects of Jesus and Hercules were NOT alike–an analogy is usually relevant for its similarities, not its differences). The point is that it is somehow acceptable to claim historicity for Christ without any reliable evidence from historical sources, but it’s quite another story for Hercules or other mythological figures. That indicates some prejudice is at work here.
Regarding the “ubiquity of Jesus” you keep referring to, I’m sure I could dredge up more “ubiquity” for concepts such as Gaia, Sasquatch, Zeus, or Lemuria. That still doesn’t prove that Gaia, Sasquatch, Zeus, or Lemuria ever existed (and I included Lemuria in that list purposefully).
I recall Cecil saying that about 20,000 books have been written on the topic of Atlantis, many of them espousing its historicity quite enthusiastically and in great detail. Should we consider such sources worthy of consideration simply because Atlantis is a ubiquitous concept? To this day ALL discussion of Atlantis ultimately derives from a few fictional words that Plato wrote to illustrate an argument by allegory. And look at how successful that myth is.
I find it extremely distasteful that I feel I have to repeat this, but I do not intend to establish that Jesus never existed. I simply want a fair and accurate handling of the available information. Claiming that Jesus existed because:
a consensus of opinion among historians based on lack of support says so
his name appears across a number of religious sources
a couple of ancient (but not contemporary) writers mention his name
is not a fair and accurate handling of the available information. It seems to me the correct assessment is “we don’t know yet”. If he existed, we don’t even know in what form (as has already been mentioned).
These are even less reliable accounts of Jesus than the sources previously criticized by Clairobscur. Pliny the Younger was born in 62 AD (three decades after Jesus’s death), besides which he doesn’t mention a whole lot about Jesus. And he stated that his information about Christians comes from Christian believers, adding to the suspicion of bias in the source material and, once again, failing to establish accuracy of the source.
The reference to the Babylonian Talmud I have trouble taking seriously. Are you aware that the work was completed around or after 500 AD and not started before the third century? This was not exactly a contemporary work. Anyway I’m not familiar with references to Jesus in this work, but I doubt they are of much relevance to a historical argument since much of the information for the Babylonian Talmud was actually piped in from the Rabbinic Academy in Palestine and therefore used the same sources we have been discussing so far.
Mara Bar-Serapion never even mentions Jesus by name in the one letter that is frequently cited by apologists as secular contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus. Mara’s mention is, at the very earliest, 40 years after the fact (and probably older than that). Once again this is not an eyewitness account, but hearsay.
Lucian of Samosata was born in 120 AD and probably didn’t start writing about Christianity in earnest until he settled down in Athens, at some point after 150 AD. He frequently satirized Christianity (and a good deal of other things) but once again I don’t see how that is relevant evidence.
Writing about something decades or centuries after the event is not necessarily evidence for the event itself. If an after-the-event writer gives a valid source or backs up a claim with evidential material about Jesus, that’s another story. But, to my knowledge, such material has not yet been established to exist.
Is there someone who can verify that you wrote that post? Someone who wouldn’t be suspicious by being a friend or co-worker of yours, I mean.
Any history that is not autobiographical is hearsay, isn’t it?
I don’t see how pointing out that Hercules was a legend is evidence that Jesus was, too.
And you, on the other hand, who used the tacky tactic of calling into question my honesty, are free from prejudice? It is to laugh. Ha.
You don’t have to repeat anything. I think most of us are capable of conducting a debate without your coaching, don’t you?
You’re making the quite common error of applying a twenty-first century zeitgeist to first century life. Stories were told and histories were written differently back then. People did not lose touch with the generation before them. They didn’t pick up their families and move a thousand miles away. Life was close to the vest, and there was no MTV bombarding people with worthless information that caused them to forget what their mommies and daddies told them.
Besides that, there is abundant evidence that proximity to an event’s time does not necessarily yield more accurate reporting. Haven’t you ever watched so-called breaking news?
And generally, with respect to skeptics who say that prejudice from the early authors of the dozens of works cast doubt on whether Jesus did miracles and such, it is a mistake to make the leap of faith from that to categorical rejection of His entire existence. A mistake that, fortunately, Cecil didn’t make.
But there is no evidence to support the assertion that people of the time were talking about The Jesus during or immediately after his lifetime in any significant manner (remember, we haven’t even established that he existed at all!). If modern-day writers do not talk about Brigadoon, is there any reason to expect a mention that Brigadoon is fictional?
It looks to me like Lib’s suggestion regarding the existence of Christ is an unfalsifiable hypothesis (cannot be demonstrated to be incorrect) since both written contemporary records and their absence would be taken as suggestion of Christ’s existence. We can entertain the idea, but I don’t think it can be used to establish anything, since it merely speculates in an ad hoc fashion as to the reason Jesus is not better documented. It also requires that you assume the existence of Christ before the argument, in which case you have already made up your mind that Christ exists, and the exercise becomes tautological.
Please stop oversimplifying what I said. Thanks in advance.
The absence of contrary records is not, in and of itself, evidence of anything at all. But when extraordinary claims are made — particularly claims that threaten the political lives of powerful men — it seems reasonable that there might be some reaction, some denial, some word of some kind that says these people are liars. Other than from you and the good folks at Infidels, I mean.
Great, Libertarian, go ahead and descend into glibness, that will help the debate.
How did you come up with that egregiously silly “question”?
It’s not, and you know it. The myths of Jesus and Hercules share important similarities. If you accept hearsay and accounts from believers as historical evidence for Jesus, then you ought to be consistent and treat similarly other accounts also based solely on hearsay and belief. Therefore Hercules’s historicity may be demonstrated the same way you seem to think Jesus’s is. I was pointing out why this technique is an error, not trying to demonstrate that Jesus must have been only a legend. But you knew exactly what I meant, because the very next thing you quote is:
Laughable that anyone would reply to my assertion with an ad hominem attack, having just demonstrated questionable honesty the breath before by deliberately misinterpreting a relatively simple statement. By the way, you are perfectly free to point out any prejudice you think I may hold on this topic. I never stated I have none, however I am aware of no particular inclination within me to accept or refuse any particular deity or deities in general. Not that my honesty is at issue here, but feel free.
By the way, I was not referring to your prejudice in the quote above, but to the prejudice of those historians who went along with the fallacy of the majority. That ties in with what I was saying about considering Jesus a reality and hercules not–it requires prejudice to make such a selection. Obviously Hercules is a dead god, whereas Jesus is the popular choice. That seems to be the prejudice.
Heh. I was not trying to coach you, I was simply explaining that my position is not to deny the existence of Jesus, but to handle the evidence in a fair manner based on reason rather than belief (they don’t call it “faith” for nothing). I find myself having to defend certain comments or positions that do not strike a popular chord, but that are nonetheless valid positions or comments. I do not want anyone to infer that I am an atheist or that my purpose is to disprove god, or anything else along those lines. A while back in another thread I wrote that the depiction of Shakespeare’s Venetian merchant as usuriosly materialistic is historically consistent. The statement as intended is true, but someone immediately jumped on it because they assumed it was an anti-Jewish slur. Sometimes people make more of a few words than the words were intended to accomplish. Hence my caveat on this obviously (judging from your increasingly defensive replies) sensitive topic.
Lib, Lib, you’re not even on the same track anymore. My statement was: “Writing about something decades or centuries after the event is not necessarily evidence for the event itself.” You’re arguing that statement would be false back in the 1st Century because people communicated better back then and spoke to each other more? The accuracy of information degrades with each retelling and with time. I don’t need to mention that memory is biologically highly fallible, because that was pointed out to you recently in another thread where you were insisting that your unsupported claim on something must be right even though it ran contrary to the reason and evidence others submitted.
Breaking news are sometimes inaccurate because not all the information has surfaced yet, and because breaking news are themselves contributing to establishing an increasingly accurate record (which is a much iffier process when talking about oral records, particularly making the transition between one person’s interpretation to the next–there’s no original to go back to). But, speaking of a single lifetime, don’t you think that a person will have an easier time remembering the details of a fact a year after the fact rather than 40 years after the fact?
This is rubbish. You do not employ reason to assume unknowns, you employ reason to resolve unknowns. I have made no categorical rejections so far, I have simply demonstrated why, based on the evidence, it is unwise to assume the factual existence of a Jesus very similar to the one described in the Bible. You may feel comfortable enough in your faith to assume that claims poorly supported by evidence are real, but it is unfair to push this point of view on to anyone else. I will make no such assumptions and (barring human error) try to proceed from what is known to attempt to resolve that which is unknown (but it seems you think that is politically incorrect).
So, to establish that which we don’t know (whether Jesus existed), we must know (analyse) that which we have, which is not much. If you feel my analysis of the sources mentioned so far is in error, please proceed along that path and address the errors. But kindly cease complaining about, essentially, nothing. There has been no categorical rejection or error such as you describe–indeed the one who made the error is Cecil himself, who went along with the fallacy of the majority by assuming an unknown (although in all fairness to Cecil he said Jesus “probably” existed, not that he did).
I have no idea what you are talking about in your most recent post, so if you want to clarify it thanks in advance. I also question the usefulness of calling me an infidel, and I further question the usefulness of accusing someone of having no faith. What’s the point?
What a loaded assertion! Myths? Important? Similarities? So, you’ve already decided that Jesus is mythical despite your assurances that you aren’t trying to prove it. You apparently are deciding what is important. And there are similarities between the sun and a tennis ball. So what?
The United States recognizes twenty-four exceptions to the inadmissibility of hearsay. There is no reason to treat all hearsay as the same.
See above where you reference the “myth” of Jesus.
I think I get it. If you call me dishonest, and I say that that’s a tacky thing to say, then I’m the one who’s calling people names. Is that the gist of it?
Refering to the myth of Jesus denies His existence by immediate implication. Kind of like this: Jesus is a myth; mythical characters didn’t exist; therefore, Jesus didn’t exist. Just because you blow your own horn and proclaim yourself to be honest and fair, whether or not you really are is to be found in your other words, not the self-flattering ones. You shouldn’t be surprised that, when you call a man dishonest, he doesn’t trust other things that you say. I’m not dishonest, and the assertion that I am is an ignorant lie.
Infidels is a very popular website. I didn’t call you an infidel. Now, can we or can we not discuss the issue at hand, rather than waste bandwidth marveling about how wonderful you are?
That is demonstrably false. We already cited various authors who DID mention Jesus and/or the Christian church. In addition, historians tell us that the Christian church was causing great agitation within the Roman empire. As Lib said, it would be most odd if there weren’t any writings to the effect of “These people are worshipping someone – a recent personage – who didn’t even exist!”
Since people were talking about Jesus though, that point is moot.
Once again, let me point out that the overwhelming majority of historians DO acknowledged that Jesus existed, even if they don’t worship him as the Messiah. The writers who claim that there is no credible evidence are, by and large, non-historians.
I’m just pretty tired of the tacit assumption on the part of some people that, because I am a man of faith, I have abandoned all reason and am some kind of fool who believes whatever I’m told by religion politicians.