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btw travric, good mention of Tacitus. I had not heard of him before this. Looking it up, I see that his mention of Jesus of Nazareth is considered a credible non-Christian source for the existence and crucifixion of Jesus. I will read more about it.
The Tacitus quote isn't really helpful for the purpose of establishing the historical Jesus. It is not a reference to biographical details of Jesus, it is a reference to the cult which sprang up in the wake of the supposed life of Jesus. It is no more proof of the historical Jesus than someone today observing Christmas celebrations and noting that the festival dates back to some stories from the first Century CE.
That Tacitus does not help to establish that there was a historical Jesus, is not of course any proof, or even suggestion, that there was not one.
Of the outside references which have been offered in this thread, only the Josephus reference to the execution of the brother of Jesus, is of any value....and its value is limited. The supposed Josephus passage where Jesus is identified as "the Christ" is believed to be a fraudulent addition by every Biblical scholar I have ever read. It is so out of keeping with the rest of Josephus' Romanized attitudes, it is so out of nowhere in its presentation, and is completely unsupported by any other reference, that it cannot possibly have been a part of Josephus' original work.
The evidence for the historical Jesus begins and ends with the New Testament books and the coming to life of a cult built around the supposed life of Jesus. That these are not unassailable proof does not mean that they aren't evidence.
Unless something new is discovered, we are left in a position where the historical Jesus can neither be proved nor disproved.
btw travric, good mention of Tacitus. I had not heard of him before this. Looking it up, I see that his mention of Jesus of Nazareth is considered a credible non-Christian source for the existence and crucifixion of Jesus. I will read more about it.
The Tacitus quote isn't really helpful for the purpose of establishing the historical Jesus. It is not a reference to biographical details of Jesus, it is a reference to the cult which sprang up in the wake of the supposed life of Jesus. It is no more proof of the historical Jesus than someone today observing Christmas celebrations and noting that the festival dates back to some stories from the first Century CE.
Re: "Of the outside references which have been offered in this thread, only the Josephus reference to the execution of the brother of Jesus, is of any value....and its value is limited."
I believe most historians in the field would take into account all the references made to Jesus or Christ in texts. There appears to be an understanding that he did in fact exist. There is no
serious question other than when they go on explore his 'divinity'.
Re: "The evidence for the historical Jesus begins and ends with the New Testament books and the coming to life of a cult built around the supposed life of Jesus."
Of course, the NT can be added to the other sources noted from history. Informationally, that's where the heft is. Quite logical in that kind of society.... No tv...;-)....
Re: "Unless something new is discovered, we are left in a position where the historical Jesus can neither be proved nor disproved"
Again would be nice if a pagan or a Roman wrote down explicitly that Jesus was a ghost or better yet a lie. And even they hey what's his angle? Scholars would have to check that out just like the Josephus source.
I don't think we can be 100% certain of a historical Jesus until we find some kind of physical evidence he existed, like a tomb or at least something we can connect to one of his relatives. A quote from someone who knew him when he was actually alive would help too. Paul is the earliest we have and he didn't actually know Jesus, he just claimed to have known his "brother", which could have meant a lot of things.
Of course, the NT can be added to the other sources noted from history. Informationally, that's where the heft is. Quite logical in that kind of society.... No tv...;-)....
Not really true. I was noting that apart from the New Testament and the existence of the cult built around the teaching of Jesus, real or invented, we have nothing which is very helpful at all.
The only legitimate biographical mention is the very slim report from Josephus that James, the brother of Jesus, was stoned to death. The other Roman sources, such as Tacitus, are not referencing Jesus, they are referencing the existence of the Jesus cult and noting that it was supposedly based on someone named Jesus. Tacitus was not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus and all he knew of Jesus would have been information provided by the cult followers. It is light years removed from what historians would regard as a primary source for the life of Jesus.
I am not here arguing that there was no Jesus, I am pointing out that the case for the historical Jesus rests on the twin pillars of the New Testament and the spread of the cult devoted to Jesus, but really nothing else of value.
You know in one respect though it is explicitly fascinating that this 'Mediterranean peasant' is arguably one of the most influential persons in succeeding generations of humanity.
I think it is incredible how his influence goes on in spite of the few sources about his 'life'. Perhaps that contributes to the fascination and success? Arguably it would seem that that paucity enables those who follow and study him see many Jesus'. His life certainly means different things to people.
Really the NT then appears like an inviting and open book to a mysterious person like Jesus. We go and read and enter his 'story'.
Jesus’s teachings were not that much different from the teachings of other major religious traditions and were well within the tradition of various contemporaneous Jewish itinerant preachers.
Does anyone have anymore information on these other contemporaries? Are there biographies or works of the other people's teachings? I'd be quite interested.
The Testimonium Flavianum in Syriac and Arabic should not be overlooked. of the links below, the .pdf link goes directly to a book discussing this.
From the 10th century? I'm not holding my breath!
But yeah, I find it weird that academia accepts Christ with a similar level of certainly to global warming and even the Holocaust when the degree of evidence is magnitudes weaker. Shows there's still a Christian bias even in secular science, same with the Big Bang theory.
Why does secular science dismiss the Christ myth theory when the onus really should be on proving Jesus did exist? The only evidence for Jesus being a real person aside from the Gospels themselves are Paul's letters and a couple questionable references from Josephus and Tacitus, both of which were written decades letter. It seems to me like Paul made up Jesus as a mouthpiece for his own beliefs.
Here's my question. Why even accept Jesus existed at all if you're a secular scientist who doesn't believe he was divine and performed miracles? If somebody told you they knew some guy named Josh back in 1962 in a foreign country who multiplied fish and walked on water and was the living incarnation of God you'd probably doubt that "Josh" was even a real person. Even if Josh was a real person, it's certain the Josh your friend is talking about is basically a fictional version of the real Josh. There's no reason to believe in the mundane details like his birth and execution if the miracles didn't happen. It makes the entire narrative suspect.
People might retort that we should use Occam's Razor and that characters like Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great are just as hard to prove as Jesus but I completely disagree. Coins were made with those men's faces on them during their own lifetimes and we have an enormous amount of evidence about the ancient Roman emperors. They also built structures in the city of Rome that still exist I'm pretty certain.
The quotes by Josephus and Tacitus don't prove Jesus was real, all they prove is that they were aware that certain people in Rome believed he was real.
With Jesus we have absolutely zero evidence of his existence from the years he supposedly was alive. While I can certainly understand disagreeing with the Christ myth theory I don't get why academia treats it as a flat earth theory when the hard evidence in favor of a real Jesus is non-existent. Until we find Jesus's grave or a contemporary account of his life written by someone who actually knew him personally I don't think we can say the Christ myth theory is ridiculous or impossible.
Because most of the historians are Christians and / or they are brainwashed into believing that he existed.
What the heck is "secular science"? Science is science. Religious belief is faith or myth or literature or whatever but it's NOT SCIENCE. History is the branch of social science that looks at whether people from previous eras lived and what they did.
Generally speaking, there's no proof that Jesus of Nazareth existed because he wasn't a very prominent person. Until perhaps the 18th century, ordinary people didn't leave "paper trails", only kings, generals, and the like, and the existence of paper records depended upon where people lived and how many wars and/or other disasters happened in the area where they lived.
In the 18th and 19th century, you start getting business records, census records, army service rolls, church registers, etc, at least in Western Europe and North American. Some of those actually survived, but what we have is probably only a fraction of what was lost -- or never saved in the first place.
Oh, please. They have found marriage certificates in Egypt dating back to the 5th century BC. There are plenty of documents from that time period. But there is absolutely no historical record of Jesus's birth, life, or death. It's like he didn't exist until years after he was supposedly killed.
The evidence that he actually existed, is so incredibly weak. But if you are Christian, you are going to believe no matter how weak the evidence.
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