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Trans why would Tacitus go into more detail about Christ, Tacitus was researching the great fire and only referenced Christ in order to clarify where the term Christian came from. What more did he need to say in order to do that.
As for Tacitus checking documentation (I posted this while you were gone so you probably missed it) read below.
[15.38] A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire. It had its beginning in that part of the circus which adjoins the Palatine and Caelian hills, where, amid the shops containing inflammable wares, the conflagration both broke out and instantly became so fierce and so rapid from the wind that it seized in its grasp the entire length of the circus. For here there were no houses fenced in by solid masonry, or temples surrounded by walls, or any other obstacle to interpose delay. The blaze in its fury ran first through the level portions of the city, then rising to the hills, while it again devastated every place below them, it outstripped all preventive measures; so rapid was the mischief and so completely at its mercy the city, with those narrow winding passages and irregular streets, which characterised old Rome. Added to this were the wailings of terror-stricken women, the feebleness of age, the helpless inexperience of childhood, the crowds who sought to save themselves or others, dragging out the infirm or waiting for them, and by their hurry in the one case, by their delay in the other, aggravating the confusion. Often, while they looked behind them, they were intercepted by flames on their side or in their face. Or if they reached a refuge close at hand, when this too was seized by the fire, they found that, even places, which they had imagined to be remote, were involved in the same calamity. At last, doubting what they should avoid or whither betake themselves, they crowded the streets or flung themselves down in the fields, while some who had lost their all, even their very daily bread, and others out of love for their kinsfolk, whom they had been unable to rescue, perished, though escape was open to them. And no one dared to stop the mischief, because of incessant menaces from a number of persons who forbade the extinguishing of the flames, because again others openly hurled brands, and kept shouting that there was one who gave them authority, either seeking to plunder more freely, or obeying orders.
Obviously Tacitus researched what he wrote about and used two different authors to do so. Now contrary to what Raf says, that I am claim for fact that Christ is mentioned by those authors I have NOT done so and tried and tried again to point out to him my conclusion that the Christ passage is mentioned by those authors is based on Occam's Razor. Everything else Tacitus got about the great fire from those two authors is fact concerning the great fire; therefore the simplest answer is that the Christ passage was also mentioned by those same authors.
To say the Christ passage is just hearsay when everything else was based on the two authors, which was factual, is not the simplest answer.
You are missing the point. there is no reason why Tacitus would have made any more than a passing remark and the fact that he did not does not mean that he didn't access official records, but if he had gone into detail, that would be evidence that he had. What this means is that there is no basis to the claim that he got the details from Roman records and it is equally likely that he got this from general hearsay about the Christian claims if -(as you argue) he wouldn't bother to talk to them himself.
The historicity of Jesus is not an issue among academics irregardless of whether such historians and scholars are skeptics or not. Those who are adamant that Jesus did not exist or was a fictitious character are relying not on facts but on belief. A belief rooted in animosity which most often is used as a means to discredit Christianity.
"I don’t think there’s any serious historian who doubts the existence of Jesus …. We have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from his time period.-Prof Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina
"The information about Jesus which can be gleaned from sources other than the gospels – a few references in Josephus, one in Tacitus, and the information implicit in Paul’s letters, for example – does little more than confirm the historical reality of Jesus and the general time and place of his activity. …. He was a Galilean, and it is likely that his principal teaching and healing activity was in Galilee, but he was executed in Jerusalem. …. There are other facts about Jesus which are equally certain …."-WD Davies & EP Sanders, Jesus: from the Jewish Point of View,in The Cambridge History of Judaism Vol 3.
"Jesus did exist; and we know more about him than about almost any Palestinian Jew before 70 C.E.”-Prof James Charlesworth, Princeton Theological Seminary
"Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it [the theory that Jesus didn’t exist] as effectively refuted.”-Robert Van Voorst, Western Theological Seminary
"The historical evidence for Jesus himself is extraordinarily good. …. From time to time people try to suggest that Jesus of Nazareth never existed, but virtually all historians of whatever background now agree that he did”-NT Wright
The Apostle Paul did not say a lot about Jesus (an argument sometimes used by sceptics, but this is an argument from silence and therefore invalid without positive evidence). But Paul did know about Jesus, and was unlikely to write a lot of historical detail in letters.
The gospels are too early for invention (too many people would have remembered the real facts), and their accurate references to Palestinian geography would not have been possible if the stories were invented later.
The development of the early christians’ understanding of Jesus which can be seen in the gospels (another argument sometimes used) is not sufficient to justify the belief that they were inventions.
No early opponents of Christianity, whether pagan or Jew, ever denied that Jesus truly lived, or even questioned it.
Scholars are generally agreed that references to Jesus in the Roman historian Tacitus (early second century) and the Jewish historian Josephus (late first century) are both genuine, though some parts of Josephus appear to be later additions.
Most arguments that Jesus wasn’t a historical figure have come from people opposed to Christianity and thus not unbiased, whereas scholars of all viewpoints from atheists to Christians accept the historicity of Jesus.
Proponents of the mythical Jesus view have not been able to offer any credible hypothesis that explains the stories of Jesus and the birth of Christianity.-Jesus Outside the New Testament by Robert Van Voorst
Scholars who specialize in the origins of Christianity agree on very little, but they do generally agree that it is most likely that a historical preacher, on whom the Christian figure "Jesus Christ" is based, did exist. The numbers of professional scholars, out of the many thousands in this and related fields, who don't accept this consensus, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Many may be more cautious about using the term "historical fact" about this idea, since as with many things in ancient history it is not quite as certain as that. But it is generally regarded as the best and most parsimonious explanation of the evidence and therefore the most likely conclusion that can be drawn.
The opposite idea—that there was no historical Jesus at all and that "Jesus Christ" developed out of some purely mythic ideas about a non-historical, non-existent figure—has had a checkered history over the last 200 years, but has usually been a marginal idea at best. Its heyday was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when it seemed to fit with some early anthropological ideas about religions evolving along parallel patterns and being based on shared archetypes, as characterized by Sir James Frazer's influential comparative religion study The Golden Bough (1890). But it fell out of favor as the twentieth century progressed and was barely held by any scholars at all by the 1960s.
More recently the "Jesus Myth" hypothesis has experienced something of a revival, largely via the internet, blogging, and "print on demand" self-publishing services. But its proponents are almost never scholars, many of them have a very poor grasp of the evidence, and almost all have clear ideological objectives. Broadly speaking, they fall into two main categories: (1) New Agers claiming Christianity is actually paganism rebadged and (2) anti-Christian atheist activists seeking to use their "exposure" of historical Jesus scholarship to undermine Christianity. Both claim that the consensus on the existence of a historical Jesus is purely due to some kind of iron-grip that Christianity still has on the subject, which has suppressed and/or ignored the idea that there was no historical Jesus at all.
In fact, there are some very good reasons there is a broad scholarly consensus on the matter and that it is held by scholars across a wide range of beliefs and backgrounds, including those who are atheists and agnostics (e.g. Bart Ehrman, Maurice Casey, Paula Fredriksen) and Jews (e.g. Geza Vermes, Hyam Maccoby)-Tim O'Neill (Tim O'Neill is a historian who also happens to be an atheist).
Yes. This is what it comes down to in the end. Yes. The evidence for a historical Jesus is good. Tacitus, I think,has always stood up. Paul, I think is a sound basis. Suetonius is quite arguable and I have been persuaded by Pneuma to give credit to the James passage in Josephus.
But all that is just confirmation of a historical Jesus that I get from the gospels anyway (1)
There is nothing much else. The Flavian testament in a fake. The rest of the 'historical' sources amount to nothing, much.
The 'Historical' Jesus was done pages ago. But the elephant in the room really is 'Historical Gospels'. That is the Real question being asked. And it is a different question altogether.
(1) a Real Jesus the gospel writers didn't much like. A Galilean - so they had to wangle a Bethlehem birth. Killed by the Romans - so they had to rewrite the story to blame the Jews. Dead, so they had to invent contradictory stories to have him get up and walk.
You are missing the point. there is no reason why Tacitus would have made any more than a passing remark and the fact that he did not does not mean that he didn't access official records, but if he had gone into detail, that would be evidence that he had. What this means is that there is no basis to the claim that he got the details from Roman records and it is equally likely that he got this from general hearsay about the Christian claims if -(as you argue) he wouldn't bother to talk to them himself.
How do you know it is gravity that makes objects fall and not some god who does not like apples? Can you prove it is gravity and not some god.
Yes
It does send them back to the stone age Raf. because the atheist simply cannot prove anything that someone believes to be false if belief has no burden of proof. The atheist simply cannot win. Go ahead try my little experiment about Jesus walking on water, I will play the guy who has no burden of proof and you the guy who says it is a fact that Jesus could not have walked on water. Thus the burden of proof is on you because you say it is a fact.
So go ahead and prove to me that Jesus could not walk on water.(If you play this out with me you will see you cannot win)
You might strongly disagree Raf, but every point you bring up there is because they believe God did those things. Let me put it this way, I have a bad cold, pray about it and the cold goes away. I would say God healed me, Now why would I say that? because I believed it to be true. Everything the Christian speak about , write about is based on belief and it is because you do not understand that it is all about belief you see Christians talking about fact.
We do eventually get to arguing about the validity of peoples' thinking and indeed the validity of the way we think altogether.
I have to say that I do accept the burden of proof in respect of the Bible, as it is a book, like any other, and, while some may say that it is up to the historian to prove what in it is rue, i don't think that works.
I think we should begin by taking it as some helpful information, until we can say with some certainly that it isn't true. "The angels of Mons" and "The guard dies, it does not surrender". was taken as reliable very often and I think it had to be, until it was shown that they were Journalists' inventions.
Ancient history has to be taken as acceptable apart from those bits we can show to be wrong, unbelievable or at least dubious, like the Gordian knot, Boudicca's speech, the drowing of the sacrificial chickens or the miraculous rain in Sallust's Jugurthine war.
That's how we should approach the Bible. In fact I am prepared to give benefit of doubt and say that a miracle doesn't require automatic rejection. If Jesus could do them, then they were done.
What does happen is that historically the nativities conradict. The burden of proof does then fall on the apologist to explain how they can be reconciled and if their explanations do not convince the skeptic, they fail.
If the resurrection account contradict, the burden of proof does then fall on the apologists to make them work and if they can be shown to be inadequate, they fail. I know the apologists won't like that, but that is the way it works.
Now I can just hear the clamour that even demonstrably absurd tales about Vinland doesn't mean the Vikings never found America. But if geographically it could be shown to be unworkable, (say up in the Polar region) then it would be rejected. That is what happens with the nativity. Neither account works.
This means that there was for sure a real Jesus, but historically not born in Bethlehem. The implicaion is that he was born in Galilee, and since nazareth doesn't seem to have existed at the time, probably Capernaum. Pending further evidence, of course, but that is the probability and to insist that Bethlehem or Nazareth is factually true in spite of the Real evidence is of course faith -based illogic.
To reject that gospel claim then shows why it was made at all, and we know why. To have esus fulfil the prophecy. That not only tells us abot the writers and their agenda, but is reminds us that Mark didn't have such a story and ohn pretty much denies a Bethlehem nativity altogether. Those two together put two nails in the coffin of the Nativity and Gospel reliability.
The excuses about 'witnesses' and 'different points of view' in view of such a test-case are no more than Faith -based denial of the way the evidence firmly points. That is why I say I accept the burden of proof and it has been discharged. Now it does fall squarely on the shoulders of the believers. And trying to validate a historical Jesus from tacitus or Josephus is simply dickering about an argument that is long since done and dusted.
Tim ONiell tried to validate the Flavian Testament to try to support some of the Gospel claims. We saw that failed. Lane Craig tried to validate the resurrection by argument and I can tell you that failed, too.
That is where the argument really now is, and not about whether there was a real Jesus or not, and not about where the burden of proof lies or what the early church fathers thought, believed and wrote.
It is neither really about Bible authorities, because, by and large, they begin by accepting the sayings and dong of the Gospels as true (more or less) without question and this, friends, buggers every one of them, their books, arguments and authority at the start, nor about appeals to Faith, scripture and personal experiences on one hand or rejection of the miraculous, dislike of religion or some other kind of atheist prejudice.
It is about the credibility of the Gospel accounts, using whatever supportive valid evidence we can use and whatever mental tools we have. It is about that, and has been for a long time.
And now you buggers have been keeping me from my lunch long enough!
It is about the credibility of the Gospel accounts, using whatever supportive valid evidence we can use and whatever mental tools we have. It is about that, and has been for a long time.
I'm ready to move on to that. The nativity clearly falls on it's face,with it's contradictions between Matthew and Luke. As for the 'Nazareth' farce. The evidence points to there being no 'Nazareth' (at least not as the Bible describes it) in the 1st century CE.
You are missing the point. there is no reason why Tacitus would have made any more than a passing remark and the fact that he did not does not mean that he didn't access official records, but if he had gone into detail, that would be evidence that he had. What this means is that there is no basis to the claim that he got the details from Roman records and it is equally likely that he got this from general hearsay about the Christian claims if -(as you argue) he wouldn't bother to talk to them himself.
Trans I would have no problem with it being hearsay if Tacitus never mentioned checking other sources.
However because Tacitus did check his sources IMO that gives a higher probability that Tacitus got the Christ passage from the sources. Why even check sources if you are just going to write hearsay? After all do you not take from source material and add what was in the source material it to your own writings? Do you use everything from the source material or do you just use enough to convey what needs to be said? If so why would Tacitus not do the same?
Yes. This is what it comes down to in the end. Yes. The evidence for a historical Jesus is good. Tacitus, I think,has always stood up. Paul, I think is a sound basis. Suetonius is quite arguable and I have been persuaded by Pneuma to give credit to the James passage in Josephus.
But all that is just confirmation of a historical Jesus that I get from the gospels anyway (1)
There is nothing much else. The Flavian testament in a fake. The rest of the 'historical' sources amount to nothing, much.
The 'Historical' Jesus was done pages ago. But the elephant in the room really is 'Historical Gospels'. That is the Real question being asked. And it is a different question altogether.
(1) a Real Jesus the gospel writers didn't much like. A Galilean - so they had to wangle a Bethlehem birth. Killed by the Romans - so they had to rewrite the story to blame the Jews. Dead, so they had to invent contradictory stories to have him get up and walk.
Well at least you call it evidence. Raf does not believe anything we have put out is evidence at all. Which backs up my claim that some atheist no matter what evidence is given will just disregard the evidence.
This means that there was for sure a real Jesus, but historically not born in Bethlehem. The implicaion is that he was born in Galilee, and since nazareth doesn't seem to have existed at the time, probably Capernaum. Pending further evidence, of course, but that is the probability and to insist that Bethlehem or Nazareth is factually true in spite of the Real evidence is of course faith -based illogic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
I'm ready to move on to that. The nativity clearly falls on it's face,with it's contradictions between Matthew and Luke. As for the 'Nazareth' farce. The evidence points to there being no 'Nazareth' (at least not as the Bible describes it) in the 1st century CE.
Nazareth farce? Obviously you guys are not aware that archeologist have discovered what they believe to be the Nazareth of Jesus day. Coins, graves, pottery and even a small house.
Trans I would have no problem with it being hearsay if Tacitus never mentioned checking other sources.
However because Tacitus did check his sources IMO that gives a higher probability that Tacitus got the Christ passage from the sources. Why even check sources if you are just going to write hearsay? After all do you not take from source material and add what was in the source material it to your own writings? Do you use everything from the source material or do you just use enough to convey what needs to be said? If so why would Tacitus not do the same?
But we know that he is considered to have made some errors and invented the whole Boudicca speech. No doubt he checked up to the best of his ability and where necessary, consulted what records the Romans had. I would think it is being over literal in applying that claim to every chance remark he made in passing. He may have looked up the records that said that Jesus the Jew was executed by Pilate. it would probably give details of the charge, who made the arrest, what accomplices there were. What the accused said in his defence, etc.
Tacitus says none of that and, as you reasonably say, he didn't need to, as it was by the way.
If it was that much by the way, he had other more important matters to consult the records about.
In any case, Tacitus is just confirmation that Pilate executed the man from whom the Christians got their name. and come to think of it, that does sound like talk about Christians rather than official record. Provisionally, I come down on the hearsay side.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pneuma
Nazareth farce? Obviously you guys are not aware that archeologist have discovered what they believe to be the Nazareth of Jesus day. Coins, graves, pottery and even a small house.
What they have discovered is a resounding lack of a 1st c Nazareth. A farm and a well but not much more than that. If it was, there would not be such strenuous efforts to conjure up a decent sized town by postulating a synagogue under a church (appealing to oral tradition), arguing that old tombs could have been used as dwellings and as I recall (1), assigning early Roman pottery a date of Jesus' time when there was no support for that dating.
Again, It doesn't matter to me whether there was a Nazareth town or not, but it does matter to Gospel credibility, so a Nazareth there has to be, whether there was one or not. So if a decent sized town or even village turns up, fine, but so far I haven't seen any real evidence other than wishful thinking.
Which is what we get in our link. One house, fine. The tombs are not datable to Jesus' time, so I read elsewhere. Just look how they wag about evidence from other places and other times that they say 'Jesus' Nazareth would have looked like' or used. Maybe, if it had ever been there.
You really need what ...a dozen such houses before you have a village? And fifty before you can talk of a town, and a hundred or so before you have one with a synagogue! But it doesn't matter, since Luke's Nazareth synagogue tale is demonstrable bunk anyway.
(1) I had a long debate on the subject with old Eusebius, and all the "evidence" (which I followed up and tracked down) turned out to be wishful thinking, as I say, other than this one house. I did see some drawn plans suggesting a wider complex, but that just makes it a bigger farm. More and more dwellings may come to light, but so far, nothing has.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 10-06-2016 at 02:43 PM..
Trans I would have no problem with it being hearsay if Tacitus never mentioned checking other sources.
Where does he mention that. All I see is that he said that that other writers gave conflicting reports. That doesn't say that he checked' those sources.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pneuma
Nazareth farce? Obviously you guys are not aware that archeologist have discovered what they believe to be the Nazareth of Jesus day. Coins, graves, pottery and even a small house.
Well I am aware of it and this nonsense was debunked years ago. 'Bible archaeology' LMAO! It's a house...one house. Nazareth was described as a city in the Bible so where are all the other houses, the shops, the municipal cemetery, the roads and the synagogue that this 'city' would have had? This 'house' is simply apologist wishful thinking. It's 'bible archaeology' - find something and then try to make it fit the story. Trowel in one hand and Bible in the other.
When you get down to the real evidence, Nazareth is not mentioned in any historical records or biblical texts of the time and receives no mention by any contemporary historian. Nazareth is not mentioned in the Old Testament, the Talmud, nor in the Apocrypha and it does not appear in any early rabbinic literature. Nazareth was not included in the list of settlements of the tribes of Zebulon which mentions twelve towns and six villages. Nazareth is not included among the 45 cities of Galilee that were mentioned by Josephus.
Nazareth is also missing from the 63 towns of Galilee mentioned in the Talmud.
The archaeology rather than the Bible archaeology says Nazareth did not exist as a town until the third century CE. Exhaustive archaeological studies have been done by Franciscans to prove that such a town existed but actually they have shown the site to have been a cemetery during the first century CE.
'Nazareth' is a mistranslation. It's not 'Jesus of Nazareth' (because there was no Nazareth) but Jesus the 'Nazarene/Nazorean.'
"There is no such place as Nazareth in the Old Testament or in Josephus' works, or on early maps of the Holy Land."—(Holley, 1994, p. 190)
"The prophecy [that Jesus is a Nazarene from Nazareth] is based on Matthew's total misunderstanding of a passage from Isaiah (11:1), where the Messiah is called a nezer (branch); in other words, a branch from Jesse's (father of David) "stump". Matthew reads into "nezer" the city of Nazareth..."—(Uta Ranke-Heinemann , 1994, p. 22)
There is, in fact, no record of Narazeth's existence at that [Jesus'] time...Nazareth is not to be found in any book, map, chronicle or military record of the period so far discovered"—(Gardner, 2007, p. 53)
There exists no epigraphic or archaeological evidence that a city called Nazareth even existed prior to 60 or 70 CE at the earliest, and even if a tiny village did exist, would residence there be what the prophets had in mind to fulfil a messianic prophesy. "It was a tiny rural hamlet. The problem is that it wasn't known by that name. It was actually a tiny, unnamed collection of about a dozen huts near the town of Gat-Hyefer, and was never known by the name of Nazareth until it was picked by a fifth-century Christian Roman emperor to be Nazareth, because he was embarrassed by the fact that no town by that name actually existed."–Scott Bidstrup,
While living at Japha, Josephus resided 2000 meters from what eventually became the centre of late Roman Nazareth, yet in his later survey of the area he makes no mention of the town. Origen lived within a day's journey of the future site of Nazareth for many years but was unable to find such a city, eventually concluding that the Gospel references to Nazareth should be interpreted figuratively or mystically. Nazorean roots of Christianity
If you are going to rely on 'Bible Archaeology' you are going fall on your face aaaaaaaaall day!
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