| Re: Secular sources and Christ |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Group: sci.skeptic · Group Profile
Author: caleecalee Date: Nov 18, 2006 12:59
On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 11:06:06 +0000, Therion Ware
city-of-dis.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 18:32:46 -0500, calee@ optonline.net wrote:
> >>On 17 Nov 2006 15:21:14 -0800, "steaknife"
>> hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>SECULAR SOURCES AND CHRIST
>>>
>>>Highly reliable sources: Tacitus and Josephus.
>>
>>Bullshit.
>>
>>Tacitus is at best merely describing Christians and what they believe.
>>But there are so many things wrong with the passage there is a
>>distinct possibility that it is a later insertion. For example do you
>>seriously imagine a Roman historian would have said :We executed the
>>annointed one" rather than "We executed Yeshua bin Yussuf" which is
>>what the execution records would have said?
>>
>>And Josephus is an obvious forgery, no Jew would have written it.
>
>Quite so. Of course it's not impossible that Flavius Jospehus wrote
>what's ascribed to him, but given the nature of his life, it's about
>as likely as finding a monograph by Hitler on the virtues of the Jews,
>or an essay by Stalin on why capitalism is wonderful.
The other obvious thing they miss, is that apart from Josephus, the
rest of the early (alleged) mentions are of some variant of
Christ/Christus etc not Jesus. It is some time before the name Jesus
crops up.
Christians make that connection without realising that before their
beliefs became widespread, nobody else would. This applies just as
much to fourth century forgers as 21st century believers.
It's difficult to get this through to the ones who can't think outside
the box.
The Josephus passage mentions Jesus as "the Christ (the Messiah)",
assuming that his readers know and use the Christian meanings of the
words. Again before it was widespread.
| 
