No, they didn’t. Tacitus is the one everyone quotes.
Tacitus wrote:
The passage was definitely proven to have been altered in the source manuscript, where Chrestus was changed to Christus.
Tacitus seems rather taciturn.
So who were the Magi (less accurately but more popularly described as the “Three Wise Men”, or “Three Kings from the East”) who were allegedly drawn to and attended the birth of Jesus? If these men were notable in their countries of origin, any hint of an independent record of them or their unusual voyage?
Personally, I think it reasonable to think Yeshua ben-Yussuf, a charismatic cult leader, did exist in Nazareth. All the Bethlehem stuff I figure is more likely fictitious, a later attempt to bolster the claim that Yeshua fulfilled prophecy by being born there, written with a clumsy deus ex machina of a specious census that for no reason requires Yussuf to drag his pregnant wife nearly 100 miles.
When the preacher at the pulpit tells his tale of confronting disbelievers using methods like these, the story usually ends with a bunch of life-long atheists dropping to their knees immediately and swearing allegiance to Jesus. Combine the expectation of this happening in real life with the deeply taught belief that questions like the ones asked in this thread(and so many others) could only come from those who hate GOD and, well…
I believe that Joseph and Mary likely questioned the need to go to the nearly 100 miles to Bethlehem in order for Jesus to be born, though they knew of the prophesy. Then, when the decree came from Ceasar that they had to go there to be taxed, they were amazed that the prophesy was proven accurate, and furthermore they were assured that they were a part of God’s divine prophecy and plan.
Is there . . . documentation . . . of such a Go There Now census at that time?
Surprise decree from Ceasar? I thought this was some sort of regular event that everyone knew about?
Just Joseph and Mary personally, or did everyone in Judea and Galilee have to return to their ancestral homes? If the latter, we’re talking a considerable disruption, the kind of thing that would get noticed.
It is generally agreed that Mark’s Gospel predates those of Luke and Matthew by decades; it is to Mark whom we must look first for history.
Yet, Mark’s Gospel begins with Jesus’ adult baptism and ends without any post-mortem sighting! No Nativity; no mention of Joseph (Jesus is simply “Son of Mary”); and certainly minimal evidence for any resurrection. Instead of 100’s of witnesses, we have one (1) 3rd-hand witness:
King James Authorized Bible has 12 additional verses which report 14 witnesses to a resurrected Jesus, but UIAM it is generally agreed that these were later additions to Mark’s Gospel which Christians were forced to make: a resurrection-free Gospel would be unacceptable.
Nobody expects the Roman Inquisition!
To sum up:
- we have one reference to ‘Chrestus’ from a known historical writer (who says nothing about any Resurrection.)
- we have four anonymous Gospels (written 30 - 100 years after the event) which claim the Resurrection. The Gospels differ on who visited the tomb, how many people were in it and what happened next.
- at one point the OP claims as ‘proof’ that some modern lawyers believe it.
I like some of Jesus’ sayings (“Do unto others etc”), but there is no reason to believe he rose from the dead.
The answer to the first question is no, as fictional (delusional?) occurrences are inherently unprovable. That renders the second question moot.
Even a contemporary written record that Jesus was seen to rise from the dead would be proof for nothing more than someone at the time wrote that Jesus was seen to rise from the dead. It’s logically far more likely that any such writer making an exceptional supernatural claim was lying, deceived, or otherwise mistaken than it is that the writer is accurately relating facts.
Y’know, I’m a Christian, and I can still find very strong evidence against Christ’s resurrection in historical documents. Looking at the entirety of all historical documents, I can find mention of a great many deaths of people. In almost none of those accounts does the dead person come back to life, and many make it specifically clear that the dead person does not come back. From this I can conclude that, at the very least, dead people coming back to life is extremely rare.
From the entirety of all historical documents, I can also find many accounts of people lying. Far more, in fact, than there are accounts of people coming back from the dead. From this I can conclude that it’s far more common for people to lie than for people to come back from the dead.
If, then, I am given a document that claims that a person came back from the dead, it is far more likely that that document is a lie, than it is that it is true.
It would help if you named the book.
Try to consider this from the point of someone who isn’t Christian, and never has been.
I have spent my entire life in a culture saturated in a religion that isn’t mine. The majority of the population has practices from written rules to actual rituals to the definition of prayer that differ from mine. When people meet me they assume I belong to a religion which I do not and never have. I have spent my entire life having to deal with people who are extremely pushy about trying to get me to convert, to the point of harassment (on one occasion knocking on my front door every 10 minutes for an entire morning, to the point I had to call the police to get them to leave us alone so my ill husband could get some uninterrupted rest) but justifying such tactics to themselves (and trying to justify it to others) with BUT WE’RE HERE TO DO GOD’S WILL!:D!:D!:D! When my spouse died it took me months to find a group for grieving people that did NOT involve a prayer to Jesus start and finish, did not speak in terms alien to my experience, and did not involve conversion attempts. Then there are the many, many ways that Christians, upon learning I am not, have done or said offensive things completely clueless as to how offensive they are. Granted, some of this is due to my location in a heavily conservative Christian area but it has happened in more liberal areas that are supposedly open-minded.
So, here we are near Easter and someone shows up trying to prove the resurrection actually to place. Yes, I’m going to be a little suspicious of your motives based on past experience.
I enjoy discussions of religion that are actually respectful of my belief by people who sincerely want to learn. I am frequently suspicious that people claiming to desire such conversations are really just using them as a way to get a foot in the door then swap to conversion attempts.
The fact you refer to documents and do not name them, and a book and do not name it, makes me further suspicious that this is NOT a debate but rather an attempt to convert. Name your sources if you want me to think otherwise.
I like Mark 7:24, where he calls Gentiles dogs. Then, he does one such dog a favor and casts out her kid’s demon. It’s an odd exchange, because he doesn’t really take it back, right? Basically, he’s not preaching for Gentiles at all, only Paul reached out to Romans, etc. The religion really got going under Paul.
To the OP, I don’t know what kind of evidence there could be for a one-of-a-kind miracle (I thought someone else was also supposedly resurrected?). However, other biblical accounts, such as the 40-year journey of the Jews, is pretty debunked, because that many people for that long would leave some evidence behind and didn’t. So, absence of evidence, while not the final proof, is strongly suggestive of evidence of absence in that particular case.
Didn’t Jesus also say he’d be back in the lifetime of those he was talking to? There’s some absence of evidence right there.
I think that if you want me, for example, to believe any of this, I should be allowed to take the out given to Thomas – show me the guy with holes in his hands, scars on his head, etc. I don’t see why Thomas is allowed to doubt, but everyone since has to go on faith.
There actually were some censuses during the Roman Empire but the timing is off, the geography doesn’t always match well, and apparently they didn’t require extensive travel.
Strikes me as someone relating a story passed down orally a generation after it actually occurred, so factual errors and/or elaborations have crept into the tale.
…and, yea, all males and their families had to travel to their city of birth purple monkey dishwasher.
Respectfully, I think you may be playing into his hands.
Imagine he simply does have a book where a self-described atheist says something about not being able to disprove the resurrection based on historical documents; what happens if he mentions it when asked? Why, then, I’m guessing it gets blandly and mundanely evaluated on its merits.
So what happens if he’s coy? As we’ve seen, one poster soon remarks that he was about to come around to believing but the book that got alluded to wasn’t named; and another poster then says he has suspicions that the guy isn’t debating in good faith, with an If-You-Want-Me-To-Think-Otherwise bit about naming the book.
I don’t want, even in jest, to talk up how great it would be to know his book.