If Jesus wasn’t a real historical figure, where did Christian theology come from?
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Anonymous
^^ Here is where we agreed it was "secondary evidence". ^^ |
Anonymous
^^ Back when we agreed that it was "very probable". |
Anonymous
Every ad hominem attack demonstrates you don't have anything more than interpretations of secondary sources. |
Anonymous
As I've said before, I think it's very likely that a real dude named Jesus lived. But, just like many other aspects of ancient history, we don't have primary sources. We don't have independent eyewitness accounts. We don't have archaeological evidence. We are only have interpretations of secondary sources. So, I don't have other possible scenarios, but I do acknowledge that we don't have absolute certainty about much, including this, in ancient history. Certainly not without primary sources. |
Anonymous
And as others have said before, you're on your own for this one. The vast scholarly consensus of several thousand classical and Biblical scholars finds the evidence at 17:19 to be convincing that Jesus definitely existed. At least you've learned the difference between primary and secondary sources, I guess? Own it: Bart Ehrman likened you guys to Holocaust Deniers and flat earthers. Too bad you don't have any scholarly chops of your own to make real arguments. |
Anonymous
DP. You’re being a bit extreme. I understand this poster is challenging your beliefs, but comparing them to holocaust deniers is just gross. |
Anonymous
It wasn’t me. Back around page 100, somebody else posted about 5 quotes from Bart Ehrman, among others, comparing Jesus deniers to Holocaust deniers. |
Anonymous
You keep saying “we.” Sorry, you’re out there all by your lonesome. The vast scholarly consensus disagrees with you and thinks Jesus definitely existed. |
Anonymous
The historicity of Jesus is not a personally held belief, it’s a historical fact. That you can’t see the difference, you are either ignorant or willfully denying history. |
Anonymous
"We" never agreed to that. Jesus' historical existence isn't in question to all but a few fringe lunatics. The premise of this thread is moot. |
Anonymous
The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. …. Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." - Robert E. Van Voorst. Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 16. "There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more.” Richard Burridge & Graham Gould. Jesus Now and Then. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2004. ISBN 0802809774), 34 |
Anonymous
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Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69–140) wrote the following in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars about riots which broke out in the Jewish community in Rome under the emperor Claudius: "As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he (Claudius) expelled them from Rome".[47] The event was noted in Acts 18:2. The term Chrestus also appears in some later texts applied to Jesus, and Robert Graves,[48] among others,[49] considers it a variant spelling of Christ, or at least a reasonable spelling error. On the other hand, Chrestus was itself a common name, particularly for slaves, meaning good or useful.[50] In regards to Jewish persecution around the time to which this passage refers, the Jewish Encyclopedia states: "… in 49-50, in consequence of dissensions among them regarding the advent of the Messiah, they were forbidden to hold religious services. The leaders in the controversy, and many others of the Jewish citizens, left the city".[51] Lucian, a second century Romano-Syrian satirist, who wrote in Greek, wrote: The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day — the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account… You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them; and then it was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.[54] Celsus, a late second-century critic of Christianity, accused Jesus of being a bastard child and a sorcerer.[55] He is quoted as saying that Jesus was a "mere man".[56] The Talmud Sanhedrin 43a, which dates to the earliest period of composition (Tannaitic period: approx. 70-200 C.E.) contains the following: On the eve of the Passover, Yeshu was hanged. Forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried: "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Any one who can say anything in his favour, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favour he was hanged on the eve of the Passover.[60] Thallus, of whom very little is known, wrote a history from the Trojan War to, according to Eusebius, 109 B.C.E. No work of Thallus survives. There is one reference to Thallus having written about events beyond 109 B.C.E. Julius Africanus, writing c. 221, while writing about the crucifixion of Jesus, mentioned Thallus. Thus: On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in his third book of History, calls (as appears to me without reason) an eclipse of the sun.[53] Pliny the Younger, the provincial governor of Pontus and Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan c. 112 concerning how to deal with Christians, who refused to worship the emperor, and instead worshiped "Christus": Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ — none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do — these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.[41] Early Christian sources outside the New Testament also mention Jesus and details of his life. Important texts from the Apostolic Fathers are, to name just the most significant and ancient, Clement of Rome (c. 100),[22] Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107-110),[23] and Justin Martyr.[24] Perhaps the most significant Patristic sources are the early references of Papias and Quadratus (d. 124), mostly reported by Eusebius in the fourth century, which both mention eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry and healings who were still alive in their own time (the late first century). Papias, in giving his sources for the information contained in his (largely lost) commentaries, stated (according to Eusebius): … if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders — that is, what according to the elders Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, were saying.[25] Thus, while Papias was collecting his information (c. 90), Aristion and the elder John (who were Jesus’ disciples) were still alive and teaching in Asia Minor, and Papias gathered information from people who had known them.[26] Another Father, Quadratus, who wrote an apology to the emperor Hadrian, was reported by Eusebius to have stated: The words of our Savior were always present, for they were true: those who were healed, those who rose from the dead, those who were not only seen in the act of being healed or raised, but were also always present, not merely when the Savior was living on earth, but also for a considerable time after his departure, so that some of them survived even to our own times.[27] By “our Savior” Quadratus meant Jesus, and by “our times,” he may have refered to his early life, rather than when he wrote (117-124 C.E.), which would be a reference contemporary with Papias.[28] |
Anonymous
Continue to play obtuse, but I’ve never denied his existence. And many of those academics say that they “accept” that he existed, not that they are absolutely certain. What (social) scientist would say that? |
Anonymous
They have enough reasonable interpretations of secondary sources to make that assumption. But that’s different than being absolutely certain. |
Anonymous
I accept that the world is round, but I am not absolutely certain. |