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OK, back to the loooong argument. Monkie, thanks for the thoughts, think you're swell as well. As an aside, I haven't rejected religion my whole life, not at all. I even went through a semi-fundie period in early college. But I have reflected a great deal on my personal beliefs, and more and more I came to realize that religion is not something I can ascribe to and maintain a personal claim of rationality.
obiwan,
Either you're not reading what I say carefully enough or you're twisting my words. I have never stated that Jesus never existed, nor am I arguing such. I am saying that there is no documentary evidence of his existence. So we can lay that canard to rest.
No one here ever questioned that the writers of the Gospels didn't know some basics of the area. But again, that only means so much. Catcher in the Rye (thanks monkie, d'oh!) is geographically accurate, but not remotely historical.
At any rate, there are instances in the gospels that bring into question a knowledge of geography and culture of the region. For instance, John 3:23 says, "John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. . . ." No such place as Aenon exists near Salim. John 12:21 says, "The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee. . . ." Bethsaida is in the Golan region, east of the Jordan river, not Galilee, which is west of the river.
And in Mark:
"Another example of Mark's abysmal ignorance of Palestinian geography is found in the story he made up about Jesus traveling from Tyre on the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, 30 miles inland. According to Mark 7:31, Jesus and the boys went by way of Sidon, 20 miles north of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast! Since to Sidon and back would be 40 miles, this means that the wisest of all men walked 70 miles when he could have walked only 30. Of course, one would never know all this from the King James version which - apparently completely ignoring a perfectly clear Greek text - says "Departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee..." Apparently the translators of the King James version also knew their geography. At least they knew more than did the author of Mark!" - (Frank R. Zindler)
And where is Nazareth? No such place existed in 1st century Judea, and nowhere is it even mentioned in the Olt Testament, the writings of Josephus (a detailed description of the cities of Galilee) or the epistles, which come before the Gospels. There's not archeaological evidence for it, either.
Culturally, Mark 10:12 states that Jesus said a woman who divorces her husband and marries another commits adultery. Well gee, in Palestine at the time, women couldn't divorce their husbands anyway--only men could procure divorces. Why would Jesus mention something so irrelevant to their culture? Answer: the author of Mark, a non-Palestinian, was writing for gentiles, not Jews.
It does, on other pages:
"It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew. Such an idea is based on the second century statements of Papias and Irenaeus. As quoted by Eusebius in Hist. Eccl. 3.39, Papias states: "Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could." In Adv. Haer. 3.1.1, Irenaeus says: "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church." We know that Irenaeus had read Papias, and it is most likely that Irenaeus was guided by the statement he found there. That statement in Papias itself is considered to be unfounded because the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek and relied largely upon Mark, not the author's first-hand experience."
Certainly it is important, if just to test the validity of the accounts. 30 years is a long time to go by for word-of-mouth accounts. When one is looking for documentary evidence, accounts from 3 decades later don't cut it. Why would I rely on an uncited "history" of World War II written in 1985 instead of relying on documentary evidence from the time period when events actually occured?
There are several indications that what Tacitus wrote shouldn't be unquestioningly accepted as gospel truth. The first is that even Tacitus was prone to making errors. The second is that within the passage itself, there are two glaring errors that Tacitus would not commit, being as diligent as he was--he refers to Pontius Pilate as a "procurator," which wasn't his title at all--he was a prefect. Apologists say the terms were interchangeable, but this is patently false. If Tacitus was relying on some sort of official Roman document, he would certainly have had Pilate's proper title in front of him. Then there is Tacitus's referral to Jesus as "Christos." This is extremely odd, since it is a Greek word meaning "The Annointed," not the name of a man. No Roman document would have referred to a Jew by such a title, and Tacitus certainly would have known it was a Greek title, not a name. Also, the tortures Tacitus describes for the Christians at the hands of Nero are dubious at best, especially since Seutonius, as staunch a critic of Nero as any, pointedly states that Nero made sure lives were never sacrificed in public entertainments--even criminals! Clearly, Tacitus and Seutonius are in contradiction here. And of the two, Seutonius is regarded as the one who is more reliable, as he held less of a bias against the emperors.
Tacitus's passage cannot be relied upon as prima facie, because it requires far too many assumptions and ignoring too many errors. The most likely explanation is that he relied upon contemporary Christian stories for the explanation of the origin of the term "Christians." He wasn't interested in Christians, but in showing Nero as a tyrant. He was going for a cursory explanation to his readers as to who Nero was abusing, and had no reason not to take the stories of Christian origins at face value, since it was an inconsequential matter to his text. Regardless of all that, without knowing what Tacitus based this on, if anything other than common stories of his day, we still cannot consider it anything other than the barest of circumstantial evidence.
Was Osiris real or fictional? Zeus? The existence of a cult around a godhead is not indicative of the actual existence of said godhead. It relies, again, on assumption.
Absolutely not. Roman persecution of Christians was done for political reasons, not religious. Christians were seen as political troublemakers, because they denied the authority of the emperor. That is what led to their persecutions. It is ludicrous to assert that persecution of a sect is evidence that the purported figure the sect worships is real. Now certainly Paul was real, but that's as close as you'll get to this supposed figurehead.
I don't know what you're trying to do, but for the upteenth time, NOTHING I am arguing about has ANYTHING to do with the notion of Jesus's supposed resurrection. If I am arguing about proof of the very existence of Jesus, suffice it to say that don't care diddly about what the Gospels say about the resurrection of someone who may not have even existed.
The gospels are vague in their detail of Jesus's life, it's as simple as that. Putting together a substantial biography of Jesus as proved a stumper for historians, since we have NO documentary evidence of his existence.
obiwan,
Boris is not as far along as you are as he is arguing that Christ never existed, while you seem to argue that he did exist.
Originally posted by obiwan18
True, that point alone will not prove that Christ is a real person, but it does reinforce the Gospels as a historical source for that time period if they accurately protray Jerusalem and the surrounding environs.
True, that point alone will not prove that Christ is a real person, but it does reinforce the Gospels as a historical source for that time period if they accurately protray Jerusalem and the surrounding environs.
At any rate, there are instances in the gospels that bring into question a knowledge of geography and culture of the region. For instance, John 3:23 says, "John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. . . ." No such place as Aenon exists near Salim. John 12:21 says, "The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee. . . ." Bethsaida is in the Golan region, east of the Jordan river, not Galilee, which is west of the river.
And in Mark:
"Another example of Mark's abysmal ignorance of Palestinian geography is found in the story he made up about Jesus traveling from Tyre on the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, 30 miles inland. According to Mark 7:31, Jesus and the boys went by way of Sidon, 20 miles north of Tyre on the Mediterranean coast! Since to Sidon and back would be 40 miles, this means that the wisest of all men walked 70 miles when he could have walked only 30. Of course, one would never know all this from the King James version which - apparently completely ignoring a perfectly clear Greek text - says "Departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee..." Apparently the translators of the King James version also knew their geography. At least they knew more than did the author of Mark!" - (Frank R. Zindler)
And where is Nazareth? No such place existed in 1st century Judea, and nowhere is it even mentioned in the Olt Testament, the writings of Josephus (a detailed description of the cities of Galilee) or the epistles, which come before the Gospels. There's not archeaological evidence for it, either.
Culturally, Mark 10:12 states that Jesus said a woman who divorces her husband and marries another commits adultery. Well gee, in Palestine at the time, women couldn't divorce their husbands anyway--only men could procure divorces. Why would Jesus mention something so irrelevant to their culture? Answer: the author of Mark, a non-Palestinian, was writing for gentiles, not Jews.
Your source does not dispute the authorship of the Gospels, all it shows is that the scholars do not agree on who wrote which Gospel first.
"It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew. Such an idea is based on the second century statements of Papias and Irenaeus. As quoted by Eusebius in Hist. Eccl. 3.39, Papias states: "Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could." In Adv. Haer. 3.1.1, Irenaeus says: "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church." We know that Irenaeus had read Papias, and it is most likely that Irenaeus was guided by the statement he found there. That statement in Papias itself is considered to be unfounded because the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek and relied largely upon Mark, not the author's first-hand experience."
However, as a historical document, is it necessary to know the exact date of composition in order to determine the reliability of the source?
Yes, it helps to know if a source was written one generation or two, but will it matter if the source was written in 25 years or 30 years after the event?
Yes, it helps to know if a source was written one generation or two, but will it matter if the source was written in 25 years or 30 years after the event?
From my Tacitus source:
"I have already noted that Tacitus' scruples and concern for accuracy were such that he always indicated when he reported rumors as such, and the Livia/Agrippa story is no exception. The story in question, from the first book of the Annals, is clearly reported by Tacitus as a rumor. He was consistent in discerning rumor from fact--as I noted from a Tacitean scholar, he did this with the sort of scruples rare in an ancient historian."
From this point, I say that Tacitus provides a reliable extra-biblical reference to Christ of Nazareth.
"I have already noted that Tacitus' scruples and concern for accuracy were such that he always indicated when he reported rumors as such, and the Livia/Agrippa story is no exception. The story in question, from the first book of the Annals, is clearly reported by Tacitus as a rumor. He was consistent in discerning rumor from fact--as I noted from a Tacitean scholar, he did this with the sort of scruples rare in an ancient historian."
From this point, I say that Tacitus provides a reliable extra-biblical reference to Christ of Nazareth.
Tacitus's passage cannot be relied upon as prima facie, because it requires far too many assumptions and ignoring too many errors. The most likely explanation is that he relied upon contemporary Christian stories for the explanation of the origin of the term "Christians." He wasn't interested in Christians, but in showing Nero as a tyrant. He was going for a cursory explanation to his readers as to who Nero was abusing, and had no reason not to take the stories of Christian origins at face value, since it was an inconsequential matter to his text. Regardless of all that, without knowing what Tacitus based this on, if anything other than common stories of his day, we still cannot consider it anything other than the barest of circumstantial evidence.
No it does not. But it does give credence as to the existence of the founder of the cult. If you see a cult founded by L. Ron Hubbard, this is evidence as to the existence of a L. Ron Hubbard. If you report the existence of Christians, you would expect to find a leader of the cult named Christ.
No, they are not, but they do raise the question of why. Why would the Romans persecute people belonging to a cult headed by a leader who did not exist? Again, this is evidence that somebody lead a cult of Christians.
"vague as the Gospels?"
The Gospels are very clear on this issue. Christ died, and rose again. All you need to do to deflate the Christians is to provide the body of Christ, who was buried inside of the tomb.
The Gospels are very clear on this issue. Christ died, and rose again. All you need to do to deflate the Christians is to provide the body of Christ, who was buried inside of the tomb.
The gospels are vague in their detail of Jesus's life, it's as simple as that. Putting together a substantial biography of Jesus as proved a stumper for historians, since we have NO documentary evidence of his existence.
The location of Bethsaida is uncertain. Of course there are archeologists who feel certain the trans-Jordan factors outweigh others, and the skeptics cling to those references with greater certainty still.
I love the way these guys quote from the KJV and then ignore the 400 year difference in use of vocabulary. In the past the word 
Quoting from idiots who don't do their homework on the passages criticised won't help your points. Take care that in grinding your axe you are not blinded by the sparks.
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