You say: "The majority of people who write along these lines
demonstrate no knowledge of antiquity or any idea of what evidence is
for the 1st century in general, however."
Yep, you're right. I know nothing of the 1st century. I agree. You
win.
I display my ignorance of history in these places too:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=443971 - deals with
some aspects of 1st century Rome
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=378691 - deals with
some aspects of 1st century Rome
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=406383 - some ancient
math in this one, so get out your slide rule
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=360332 - and this one
about the origin of books in the ancient world
Now then, Google seems to think I know something. But, who are they to
make such a judgement? hmmmmm?
Since you and I both know that I know nothing about the ancient world
at all, or the 1st century in particular when I write my vacuuous
little dittys. I'm taking your word for it and agreeing - see?
I'm easy to get along with.
Cheers
Digs - - aka Rod Polasky - retired Egyptologist, archaeologist and part
time lecturer Cultural Anthropology of the Ancient world, Ohio state
University.
http://www.archaeolink.com
roger_pearse@
yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> Digs wrote:
>> There is no evidence that even the apostles existed outside of the
>> Bible.
>
> The majority of people who write along these lines demonstrate no
> knowledge of antiquity or any idea of what evidence is for the 1st
> century in general, however.
>
>> "Now then, there are many characters in the New Testament, but perhaps
>> the most blatantly obvious fictions are the Twelve Disciples.
>
> Argument by assertion. Every famous man has his disciples; admittedly
> it is usually Judas who writes the biography.
>
>> Of course, if Jesus was a sun-god
>
> As he was not, there seems little point to this remark.
>
>> he would have needed twelve accomplices, one for every month of the year,
>
> Non sequitur, surely.
>
>> Mithras also had the twelve.
>
> Error of fact, unfortunately.
>
>> It is also not surprising...
>
> Arguing from what someone living 2,000 later "would expect" is only
> reasonable if the person concerned is (a) impartial and (b)
> well-educated.
>
> I have snipped various old-fashioned "bible difficulties" --
> difficulties only to the poster, I suspect -- at this point.
>
>> This confusion of disciples and apostles ...
>
> Presumed confusion.
>
>> that we find in the gospels can tell us something of the political
>> necessities behind the various gospels and time of their writing. Although
>> the New Testament doesn't tell us very much about history directly, ...
>
> Unless the story is driven by the data, rather than using the data as
> decoration, it is most likely to be false. Starting by saying that the
> NT tells us little is a poor basis for the imaginary story that
> follows, surely?
>
>> Now despite all that confusion, the Twelve clearly serve a zodiacal
>> function in the gospels,
>
> "Clearly" not.
>
>> and the sun-god nature of Jesus becomes clear
>> as crystal when one examines the early history of the Christian
>> church. (Excavations beneath the vatican have revealed a mosaic
>> depiction of Christ as the sun-god Helios - with solar chariot,
>> horses, and all!)
>
> I wonder to what this refers. Hearsay statements like this are not
> evidence.
>
>> The core narrative of the gospel of Mark is played
>> out in twelve months (suggestively solar), and some scholars have
>> thought that the original version of the gospel of Mark had a
>> twelve-part structure sort of the Christian equivalent of the Twelve
>> Labors of Hercules (another savior godlet).
>
> 1. Which scholars
> 2. Why is Hercules introduced?
>
>> Now we need to address some of the material claimed to prove Jesus
>> existence.
>
> No sensible person debates this.
>
>> We can begin with "Evidence That Demands A Verdict" - by Josh McDowell
>>
>> He quotes such sources as Flavius Josephus, even though he is probably
>> aware that no serious student or theologian considers the passages he
>> quotes as anything other than early Christian forgeries.
>
> No Josephan scholar would dismiss these two passages in such terms.
> This statement above was not true in 1900 -- the high water mark of
> hyperscepticism -- when the short passage was acknowledged as genuine
> by everyone apart from Emil Schurer. Today scholars generally consider
> even the long passage as probably genuine but corrupt.
>
>> (Josh McDowell) book is only a literary essay with no tangible proofs. He relies
>> heavily on the quotes of other Christian authors to support his case
>> and he blatantly ignores any evidence that is contrary to his point.
>
> Such as?
>
> McDowell's case is to tabulate the ancient data and see what it says,
> without finding excuses to ignore any of it. This is the correct
> scholarly approach, surely, to any question about antiquity.
>
> By contrast all the critiques that I have seen rely on debunking the
> available data and then claiming that the manufactured void is evidence
> of absence. It would be hard to imagine any theory, however
> half-baked, that would not adopt such a method.
>
>> Pliny the Younger (62?-c.113) was Governor of Bithynia, and ancient
>> land located in Northwest Turkey. His letter was written around Around
>> 111 or 112 CE. and deals with his handling of Christians in his
>> jurisdiction.
>
> Letters X:96 and 97, the latter being the reply from the emperor
> Trajan.
>
>> It is a given by historians (most historians without a particular
>> religious agenda that is), that everything Pliny claims to know about
>> Christians is attributed to Christian sources such as the recanters
>> who reported what Christians did, and the two deaconesses that he
>> tortured to find out what the religion was about.
>
> I'm not sure who these anonymous historians are, whose authority we are
> supposed to accept. But it is evident from the letters that Pliny was
> quite familiar with the name of Christian -- he doesn't have to tell
> Trajan what he's talking about! -- and indeed expects the emperor to
> know who Christ is. The results of his investigation are given, and
> suggest no real familiarity with Christianity, but only the slanders
> circulated by Christophobes, then as now.
>
>> "Christian historian Robert Wilken concludes, Pliny's "knowledge of
>> the new movement must have been slight and largely second-hand."
>
> Who is quoted here?
> Why is the religious attribute "Christian" introduced?
> Why do we take his word for it, rather than look for ourselves?
>
>> And France writes,
>
> All of it? Surely this should be in French?
>
>> "for our purposes, looking for evidence about Jesus,
>> [Pliny's letter] has nothing specific to offer. ... Pliny seems to
>> have discovered nothing about him as a historical figure."
>
> Nothing is mentioned. But that Christ was a man now worshipped as a
> god is fairly clear from the letter.
>
>> Thus, Pliny's letter cannot be used as independent confirmation of the
>> historicity of Jesus.
>
> It is hard to imagine why. The letter records the existence of
> Christians at this very early date (corroborating what the Christians
> say about their own origins); indicates that the state knew of a
> Christ, and that his worshippers formed an illegal group. If all this
> is not evidence of the footprint left by an individual some decades
> after his death, it is hard to say what is.
>
>> Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian who lived from 55 to 120 CE
>> and wrote a book Annals, circa 112 CE. His material was derived from
>> Christian material circulating in the early 2nd century.
>
> No evidence is offered for this assertion, and it seems most unlikely.
> Tacitus would have drawn his material from sources available to him as
> an ex-consul and one of the most eminent men of his day. These might
> have included Christian books but this cannot be shown, and certainly
> not presumed.
>
>> Material derived from other material cannot be construed as non-biblical
>> evidence for the life of Christ.
>
> The argument seems to be that we can ignore testimony if we can
> speculate about its origins. This is irrational. All material on this
> subject will be linked, if only by the person under discussion.
>
>> In fact, he probably obtained his information from Pliny the
>> Younger.
>
> Clearly not, given Pliny's own lack of knowledge. And Pliny never
> returned from Bithynia.
>
>> Suetonius was the author of The Lives of the Caesars circa 120 CE. He
>> wrote "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation
>> of Chrestus, [Emperor Claudius in 49 CE] expelled them from Rome."
>> This passage is often used to support the historicity of Jesus. It
>> assumes that Jesus' title was misspelled. However, there is an
>> enormous doubt that it was a misspelling. Christ is a title, but
>> Chrestus was in fact a common Greek name. It is likely that the
>> reference is to a Jewish agitator in Rome by that name.
>
> Lots of speculation in this, none of it of any value. That Christians
> were frequently called Chrestians we know from Tertullian
> "Apologeticum". That other people bore versions of the name we know.
> But we only know of one person of that name causing ructions among the
> Jews at that period, which is Jesus of Nazareth. If this passage does
> not refer to him -- and why should it not? -- then it is inscrutable.
> But the passage is indeed not certainly a reference; it can be counted
> as interesting but inconclusive.
>
>> There were about 40 historians who wrote during the first two
>> centuries. and with the exception of the above spurious accounts,
>> including those forged in "Antiquities of the Jews," none stated that
>> Jesus existed in the 1st century.
>
> We do not have 40 historians in this period -- this is careless
> repetition from an oft-debunked list of Roman writers which includes
> many non historical writers, some whose works are lost and so unknown,
> and some who died before Jesus ever spoke a word in public.
>
> Note also the fallacy involved; apparently some of these 40 Roman
> historians -- other than the 3 mentioned -- must mention this obscure
> preacher from the far end of the empire, or he cannot have existed?
> Such logic needs only to be stated to be destroyed, surely?
>
>> The Talmud states that Jesus lived in the 2nd century BCE. However,
>> this passage itself dates from the early 2nd century CE. The authors
>> undoubetedly based their writings as a reaction to some of the dozens
>> of Christian gospels circulating by that time.
>
> "Undoubtedly" is a word that comes easily to some. In the absence of
> evidence, why should we believe this? Inventing stories about data in
> order to ignore it is a characteristic of polemic, not history.
>
>> Bar-Serapion's letter does refer to Jesus, but it is worthless as a
>> witness to the historicity of Jesus because Bar-Serapion gained his
>> information from Christians, the date of the letter is unknown, and
>> the letter contains historical errors.
>
> Clearly the author knows nothing much about the letter of Mara, but is
> determined to ignore it. The last fallacy is curious. Do we believe
> that a letter by myself discussing George W. Bush to a friend would
> apparently not be evidence, then, in 2,000 years time that GWB existed,
> if I make a mistake on the name of the current president of Iraq?
>
>> And to include Tertullian on the list as an independent source is
>> ludicrus. Tertullian was a theologian, of course he would write what
>> supported the cause. Definitely a non-starter as an independent source
>> for anything relating to this discussion.
>
> Ad hominem arguments are not evidence. But Tertullian wrote ca. 200,
> so can hardly be counted.
>
>> As for Thallus, we know almost nothing about him or his works. We
>> don't even know if he wrote only one book or several. The only
>> information we have about him, even his name, comes entirely from
>> Christian apologetic sources beginning in the late 2nd century.
>
> This is very misleading, and somewhat obscurantist. All our knowledge
> of antiquity passes through Christian hands, and could be disregarded
> in this manner if we were foolish enough. Africanus quotes Thallus to
> disagree with him, hardly to use him for apologetic purposes. Quite
> why the number of books written being unknown is evidence against
> Thallus we are not told.
>
>> Scholars since the 18th century have even invented facts about him,...
>
> This has no relevance here.
>
>> As for what Thallus wrote about, we are told by Eusebius, (the forger
>> of parts of "Antiquity of the Jews" remember!)
>
> No scholar thinks that Eusebius composed this, other than a single
> post-doc.
>
>> - To confuse matters further, the late forger of a work in the name of
>> Justin Martyr
>
> The idea that names could be assigned by mistake is evidently not
> palatable to the author; any mistake must be deliberate, and done out
> of malice -- thus a forgery. Such hatefulness is tiresome.
>
>> claims Thallus among those who mentioned Moses and the antiquity of the Jews
>> in the context of Athenian history. This last can be dismissed,
>> however, since the forged text is almost a word-for-word adulteration
>> of a quote from Julius Africanus.
>
> In the absence of any precise references, we can hardly evaluate any of
> this. But that the conclusion was written first is clear.
>
>> Christian apologists like to use the works of Phlegon as evidence,
>> especially of the Passion. Phlegon merely recorded a great earthquake
>> in Bithynia, which is on the coast of the Black Sea, more than 500
>> miles away from Jerusalem--so there is no way this quake would have
>> been felt near the crucifixion--and a magnificent noontime eclipse,
>> whose location is not clear. If the eclipse was also in Bithynia, as
>> the Phlegon quote implies but does not entail, it also could not have
>> been seen in Jerusalem, any more than partially, since the track of a
>> total eclipse spans only 100 miles and runs from west to east
>> (Jerusalem is due south).
>
> Finding excuses to ignore the testimony from the Olympic Chronicle of
> Phlegon is unscientific.
>
>> As for such a quake in Jerusalem at the time of the passion, the
>> geologic evidence does not support it
>
> Please adduce the evidence for this claim.
>
>> nor is there any mention of such an event outside of just one gospel." - Quote
>> from me in that previous question
>
> Quite why the absence of more than one mention means that things cannot
> happen is again not explained.
>
>> Once again, these are the same sources used by Josh McDowell, and most
>> all of the others who try to claim non-Biblical evidence for Jesus and
>> the Apostles."
>
> They add up to a good solid wodge of material.
>
> All the best,
>
> Roger Pearse
