The historical Jesus

[Grave_n_idle]

books written by people who were with Jesus. I have no more evidence to say that your human apart from your posts on NS. Yet noone has desputed the fact that there is someone human typing your messeges.

No they weren't. They were written something like a generation (at least) after Jesus is supposed to have lived. These people could not have been eyewitnesses.

proof? evidence? source?

You claimed they were written by people that knew him. Proof? Evidence Source?

You made the first claim - let's see you support it.

[Grave_n_idle]

No. This very passage that you cite which mentions his death is a forgery. This is not historical evidence, this is a historical forgery. He doesn't have to have existed for someone to write him into someone else's history books.

No parts of this may have been a forgery. Some of it relaiting to Jesus is historical fact. But what about all the other sources i gave? are they all forgerys too?

The whole passage is fairly obviously forged. This was discussed - in some depth - just a page or two back.

Is it REALLY too much to ask that you read what has been discussed in the thread you are posting in?

Here - read this: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10700&start=225#p375162

and - this: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10700&start=225#p375666

[Dakini]

No. This very passage that you cite which mentions his death is a forgery. This is not historical evidence, this is a historical forgery. He doesn't have to have existed for someone to write him into someone else's history books.

No parts of this may have been a forgery. Some of it relaiting to Jesus is historical fact. But what about all the other sources i gave? are they all forgerys too?

I went through a number of the sources you mentioned earlier in this thread (two to three pages ago). None of them are contemporary sources anyway so it doesn't matter too much, but I actually went and looked up a lot of the supposed Jesus references, about half of them don't say a damn thing about Jesus.

Further, no. The entire Josephus passage on Jesus is a forgery. The reasons have been discussed already in this thread (in the last two to three pages, read those and then comment).

[Dakini]

books written by people who were with Jesus. I have no more evidence to say that your human apart from your posts on NS. Yet noone has desputed the fact that there is someone human typing your messeges.

No they weren't. They were written something like a generation (at least) after Jesus is supposed to have lived. These people could not have been eyewitnesses.

proof? evidence? source?

I agree with GnI here. You made the claim initially and actually, this is something which has been discussed in the thread already anyway (though a bit further back than the other stuff you're rehashing).

[Lithzenze]

You claimed they were written by people that knew him. Proof? Evidence Source?

You made the first claim - let's see you support it.

"The key to dating the Gospels is dating the book of Acts (written by Luke). Luke makes no mention of the capture and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans. He also doesn't mention the war between the Romans and Jews in 66 A.D., though throughout his writings he is concerned with Roman-Jewish relations.

Jesus said Jerusalem would fall.

Luke 21:5-6 Some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stonework of the Temple and the memorial decorations on the walls. But Jesus said, “The time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

Wouldn't Luke have pointed out that the destruction of the Temple had actually happened and that the prophecy of Jesus had been fulfilled if it occurred before he wrote his gospel? Luke was written before Acts to be published as a two volume set. Luke was written after Mark, because both Luke and Matthew use the Gospel of Mark as a source. This dates the book of Acts to have been written no later than the mid 60's A.D.

This means that the first Gospels were written less than 30 years after Jesus' death in 30 A.D. Not enough time had passed for legend to take effect. Legends tend to start with facts, but over many generations include more fiction. However; it takes much longer than 30 years to develop a legend. By 60 A.D., eyewitnesses mentioned in the Gospels would have still been alive and living in the area who could dispute the New Testament writings."

http://www.scarfire.com/cjournal/journa ... idence.htm

[Lithzenze]

Out of interest

"The chart below lists some documents, how many known original manuscripts, and the time span from the first known manuscript and when the document was authored.

Author No. of Copies Time Span
Caesar 10 1.000 years
Plato (Tetralogies) 7 1,200 years
Tacitus (Annals) 20 1,000 years
Pliny the Younger (History) 7 750 years
Suetonius (De Vita Caesarum) 8 800 years
Homer (Iliad) 643 500 years
New Testament Over 24,000 25 years

After looking at the chart above, which document do you believe is the most trustworthy in being accurate regarding being closest to the original? Homer's Iliad does not even come close to the New Testament. Time span is critical when determining if the manuscript is close to the original."

http://www.creatingfutures.net/validity.html

despite my best attempts to edit it, the chart is pretty mest up.

[Tmutarakhan]

I see nothing remotely "clear" about that. There is no motive I can see for anyone to have invented the Agapius version.

I'm not saying that the text allocated to Agapius is 'fake'. I'm saying that the Agapius text refers to a POST-Josephus amendment.

Amendment OF WHAT? I do not understand what you are even trying to say here. I thought your contention was that Josephus never said anything about Jesus at all.
Nobody thinks Agapius is quoting verbatim (his other excerpts from Josephus are paraphrased), but the content has no plausible source, so far as you or anyone else have indicated, except Josephus.

Both are correct. It doesn't fit the surroundings - despite your claims that it does

I explained why it DOES fit. You haven't given anything but "nuh-UHHHH" to explain why you don't think it fits.

it doesn't fit with Josephus' established style anywhere else in the text... it doesn't use his vocabulary, it doesn't 'read like' Josephus.

It does, in fact, match his vocabulary and style quite well. Who is telling you otherwise? I pointed to one specific match (the use of phyle "tribe" for a non-ethnic group); you have not pointed to anything that fails to match.

Not the point: Josephus is very specific about his phrasing - the only references to 'a wise man' anywhere else in the canon, are Solomon and Daniel. The only reference to 'wonderful works' anywhere else in the canon, is Elisha.

What's your point? These are phrases which, as you acknowledge, Josephus uses, here used quite appropriately. The words attributed to Jesus have been regarded by lots of people as wise; they have been quoted much more often than anything attributed to Daniel, probably more often than anything attributed to Solomon. Elisha is the prophet whose works consisted of healings, as Jesus is said to have done. Just because Josephus didn't regard Jesus as the messiah doesn't mean he couldn't have recognized him as wise and wonderful.

No - I doubt Jospehus used that phrasing.

Eusebius is our source for Josephus having said it. Eusebius also says Tertullian said it (he didn't), and that Trajan said it (he also didn't).

We don't have everything Tertullian or Trajan wrote, so you have no reason to be sure they didn't say what they are quoted as saying.
Eusebius quotes a lot of sources, some good, some bad; the version of Josephus he quotes is certainly bad, but I don't see Eusebius as being the one who made it up.

And yet, it was obvious then, too... perhaps the 'problem' isn't the argument...

Your arguments may or may not be "correct", but given that most people who look at this come to an opposite conclusion from yours, "clearly" there is nothing "obvious" about your case: the word "obvious" means that most reasonable people would look at it and say "oh yes, I see" which is definitely not the case here.

On the contrary - making Celsus look like a dick was pretty much Origen's passion.

But, there is no way that quoting the Josephus passage would have "made Celsus look like a dick". Neither Celsus, nor anybody else, was disputing that there was a person named Jesus who won the respect of a lot of people.

[Dakini]

You claimed they were written by people that knew him. Proof? Evidence Source?

You made the first claim - let's see you support it.

"The key to dating the Gospels is dating the book of Acts (written by Luke). Luke makes no mention of the capture and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans. He also doesn't mention the war between the Romans and Jews in 66 A.D., though throughout his writings he is concerned with Roman-Jewish relations.

Jesus said Jerusalem would fall.

Luke 21:5-6 Some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stonework of the Temple and the memorial decorations on the walls. But Jesus said, “The time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

Wouldn't Luke have pointed out that the destruction of the Temple had actually happened and that the prophecy of Jesus had been fulfilled if it occurred before he wrote his gospel? Luke was written before Acts to be published as a two volume set. Luke was written after Mark, because both Luke and Matthew use the Gospel of Mark as a source. This dates the book of Acts to have been written no later than the mid 60's A.D.

This means that the first Gospels were written less than 30 years after Jesus' death in 30 A.D. Not enough time had passed for legend to take effect. Legends tend to start with facts, but over many generations include more fiction. However; it takes much longer than 30 years to develop a legend. By 60 A.D., eyewitnesses mentioned in the Gospels would have still been alive and living in the area who could dispute the New Testament writings."

http://www.scarfire.com/cjournal/journa ... idence.htm

Would you like to find a non-apologist source? Perhaps one that doesn't include claims like "nobody would be a martyr for a myth" and cites sources?

Against your uncited apologist website, I give you a heavily cited and relatively unbiased wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating

The earliest gospel was written around 65 CE, the latest of the four was around 100. The life expectancy at the time was not particularly long.

[Lithzenze]

You claimed they were written by people that knew him. Proof? Evidence Source?

You made the first claim - let's see you support it.

"The key to dating the Gospels is dating the book of Acts (written by Luke). Luke makes no mention of the capture and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans. He also doesn't mention the war between the Romans and Jews in 66 A.D., though throughout his writings he is concerned with Roman-Jewish relations.

Jesus said Jerusalem would fall.

Luke 21:5-6 Some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stonework of the Temple and the memorial decorations on the walls. But Jesus said, “The time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

Wouldn't Luke have pointed out that the destruction of the Temple had actually happened and that the prophecy of Jesus had been fulfilled if it occurred before he wrote his gospel? Luke was written before Acts to be published as a two volume set. Luke was written after Mark, because both Luke and Matthew use the Gospel of Mark as a source. This dates the book of Acts to have been written no later than the mid 60's A.D.

This means that the first Gospels were written less than 30 years after Jesus' death in 30 A.D. Not enough time had passed for legend to take effect. Legends tend to start with facts, but over many generations include more fiction. However; it takes much longer than 30 years to develop a legend. By 60 A.D., eyewitnesses mentioned in the Gospels would have still been alive and living in the area who could dispute the New Testament writings."

http://www.scarfire.com/cjournal/journa ... idence.htm

Would you like to find a non-apologist source? Perhaps one that doesn't include claims like "nobody would be a martyr for a myth" and cites sources?

Against your uncited apologist website, I give you a heavily cited and relatively unbiased wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

[Lithzenze]

You claimed they were written by people that knew him. Proof? Evidence Source?

You made the first claim - let's see you support it.

"The key to dating the Gospels is dating the book of Acts (written by Luke). Luke makes no mention of the capture and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans. He also doesn't mention the war between the Romans and Jews in 66 A.D., though throughout his writings he is concerned with Roman-Jewish relations.

Jesus said Jerusalem would fall.

Luke 21:5-6 Some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stonework of the Temple and the memorial decorations on the walls. But Jesus said, “The time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

Wouldn't Luke have pointed out that the destruction of the Temple had actually happened and that the prophecy of Jesus had been fulfilled if it occurred before he wrote his gospel? Luke was written before Acts to be published as a two volume set. Luke was written after Mark, because both Luke and Matthew use the Gospel of Mark as a source. This dates the book of Acts to have been written no later than the mid 60's A.D.

This means that the first Gospels were written less than 30 years after Jesus' death in 30 A.D. Not enough time had passed for legend to take effect. Legends tend to start with facts, but over many generations include more fiction. However; it takes much longer than 30 years to develop a legend. By 60 A.D., eyewitnesses mentioned in the Gospels would have still been alive and living in the area who could dispute the New Testament writings."

http://www.scarfire.com/cjournal/journa ... idence.htm

Would you like to find a non-apologist source? Perhaps one that doesn't include claims like "nobody would be a martyr for a myth" and cites sources?

Against your uncited apologist website, I give you a heavily cited and relatively unbiased wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating

The earliest gospel was written around 65 CE, the latest of the four was around 100. The life expectancy at the time was not particularly long.

well Abraham lived to a ripe old age.

[JLAEST]

You claimed they were written by people that knew him. Proof? Evidence Source?

You made the first claim - let's see you support it.

"The key to dating the Gospels is dating the book of Acts (written by Luke). Luke makes no mention of the capture and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 A.D. by the Romans. He also doesn't mention the war between the Romans and Jews in 66 A.D., though throughout his writings he is concerned with Roman-Jewish relations.

Jesus said Jerusalem would fall.

Luke 21:5-6 Some of his disciples began talking about the majestic stonework of the Temple and the memorial decorations on the walls. But Jesus said, “The time is coming when all these things will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

Wouldn't Luke have pointed out that the destruction of the Temple had actually happened and that the prophecy of Jesus had been fulfilled if it occurred before he wrote his gospel? Luke was written before Acts to be published as a two volume set. Luke was written after Mark, because both Luke and Matthew use the Gospel of Mark as a source. This dates the book of Acts to have been written no later than the mid 60's A.D.

This means that the first Gospels were written less than 30 years after Jesus' death in 30 A.D. Not enough time had passed for legend to take effect. Legends tend to start with facts, but over many generations include more fiction. However; it takes much longer than 30 years to develop a legend. By 60 A.D., eyewitnesses mentioned in the Gospels would have still been alive and living in the area who could dispute the New Testament writings."

http://www.scarfire.com/cjournal/journa ... idence.htm

Just a little curiosity: That dating will be coincident with the theory that Mark was the "A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment" that is only reffered by him and that many scholars think it was actually Mark (Mark 14:51-52). Don't ask me to backup this, it's not my theory and I couldn't find it in English neither in the Internet.

[Dakini]

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

[Dakini]

well Abraham lived to a ripe old age.

Yeah. I totally believe that he lived to be 175 because it's just so plausible.

[Lithzenze]

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

lmao i very much doubt that. Wiki can be edited by pretty much anyone.

[Farnhamia]

Umm well what are the Gospels then? You know, Mark, Mathew, Luke, John?

Books.

So is Harry Potter.


Doesn't mean Harry really exists. Doesn't mean he's actually a wizard.

No matter what Hagrid said.

books written by people who were with Jesus. I have no more evidence to say that your human apart from your posts on NS. Yet noone has desputed the fact that there is someone human typing your messeges.

No, not really. It was thought that Matthew was one of the Disciples, but that's no longer accepted. Go look up "Synoptic Gospels" in Wiki and follow the link to the Gospel of Matthew. And yes, Wiki is quite reliable, even though some of the information it presents may not be what you care to read.

[JLAEST]

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

Hum...

Wikipedia survives research test

John Seigenthaler criticised Wikipedia's reliability
The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

[Farnhamia]

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

lmao i very much doubt that. Wiki can be edited by pretty much anyone.

That used to be true but no longer. They regularly review articles and will post banners warning about lack of references and such.

[Lithzenze]

well Abraham lived to a ripe old age.

Yeah. I totally believe that he lived to be 175 because it's just so plausible.

i detect sarcasm. I belive that he did live to be of a very old age.

[Farnhamia]

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

Hum...

Wikipedia survives research test

John Seigenthaler criticised Wikipedia's reliability
The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

Seigenthaler?

In May 2005, an anonymous user created a five-sentence Wikipedia article about Seigenthaler which contained false and defamatory content.[25] Seigenthaler contacted Wikipedia in September, and the content was deleted. He later wrote an op-ed on the experience for USA Today, in which he wrote "And so we live in a universe of new media with phenomenal opportunities for worldwide communications and research — but populated by volunteer vandals with poison-pen intellects. Congress has enabled them and protects them."[26] A reference to the protection from liability that Internet Service Providers are given under Federal law versus editorially controlled media like newspapers and television.

After the incident, Wikipedia took steps to prevent a recurrence, including barring unregistered users from creating new pages.

[Lithzenze]

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

Hum...

Wikipedia survives research test

John Seigenthaler criticised Wikipedia's reliability
The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

A reiable Study to wich i can read the results and i am sure you will kindly post a link or give me a reference so i can learn more about said study?

[Dakini]

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

Hum...

Wikipedia survives research test

John Seigenthaler criticised Wikipedia's reliability
The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

A reiable Study to wich i can read the results and i am sure you will kindly post a link or give me a reference so i can learn more about said study?

You mean like the BBC article I linked which has details?

[JLAEST]

My point is that it doesn't say reliable on everything neither on history/religion (what we are debating) but in science, that has nothing to do with that. The rest, is with Dakini.

[Dakini]

haha Wiki unbiased??? lmao, and sorry to burst your bubble but Wiki is hardly reliable.

Wiki is about as reliable as a normal encyclopedia. And given that this article is heavily cited, it is significantly more reliable than your source.

Hum...

Wikipedia survives research test

John Seigenthaler criticised Wikipedia's reliability
The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

If I'm not mistaken, the general conclusion is that pages which are heavily referenced and worked on tended to be accurate. I don't see why this would hold in science articles, but not others.

[Tmutarakhan]

Luke was written before Acts to be published as a two volume set.

No. The two-volume "Luke"/"Acts" is a late compilation from multiple sources, as the anonymous author acknowledges in his cover letter to Theophilus, patriarch of Antioch in the mid-2nd century. The direct source for most of "Luke" is the Evangelion published by Marcion c. 130, which was not yet attributed to Luke or to anybody else, not yet associated with the book of Acts, and not yet including the nativity stories for John the Baptist or Jesus, or the "temptation in the desert" story. The direct source for the second half of Acts is called the "we document", a travel narrative in which the pronoun is always "we" when Luke the physician was present but "they" otherwise; the "we document" is clearly from the hand of Luke, written c. 63 (it ends when Paul has been in Rome a while; but the Great Fire episode has not happened, and it is inconceivable that this would not have been mentioned if it had happened already when the document was written). The first half of Acts shows signs of internal rearrangement, reflecting older sources that have been reworked to form a bridge from the "gospel" (itself a reworking of older sources; Marcion did not write it) to the "we document".

[Grave_n_idle]

Amendment OF WHAT? I do not understand what you are even trying to say here. I thought your contention was that Josephus never said anything about Jesus at all.
Nobody thinks Agapius is quoting verbatim (his other excerpts from Josephus are paraphrased), but the content has no plausible source, so far as you or anyone else have indicated, except Josephus.

The whole contested passage - is what I'm talking about. The one you keep saying 'well, these three bits are added later'... yes, I agree - they are 'added later' to a whole passage that was added later. They were just added even later than THAT.

I explained why it DOES fit. You haven't given anything but "nuh-UHHHH" to explain why you don't think it fits.

You've done no such thing. You've said 'it fits' - for almost the exact same reasons I've said it doesn't.

you have not pointed to anything that fails to match.

You already responded to at least two of them, so that's just siomply not true.

What's your point? These are phrases which, as you acknowledge, Josephus uses, here used quite appropriately.

No, used quite inappropriately - that's the whole point.

Eusebius quotes a lot of sources, some good, some bad; the version of Josephus he quotes is certainly bad, but I don't see Eusebius as being the one who made it up.

Given his tendency to make up sources if they didn't exist, I don't find it hard to believe Eusebius might be the originator... but he doesn't have to be. The text was added after Josephus, and didn't exist when Origen was citing. I don't know or care who added it.

But, there is no way that quoting the Josephus passage would have "made Celsus look like a dick".

On the contrary - go back and actually read what I wrote.