Did contemporary historians mention Jesus?

[AMbomb]

The question of the Historicity of Jesus has long been established - both in this thread and on this planet.

It only continues in the light of ignorance of the saliency of Jesus Christ.

The bottom line is this: We shall all come before Jesus on that final day and final hour - then you shall have your history lesson and all the other lessons in one standing.

You play poker?

Simply stating your conclusions without any facts to back them up is not a convincing argument. It's been a while, but I have played poker.

[godshoulddie]

I offer this as a series of posts that anyone may respond too but it is meant specifically for Jc4runner. It will be in a series of rounds as a debate forum.

Round 1: Josephus

The most commonly used references for a historical Jesus are two passages from the Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus. The first I will deal with is the passage known as the Testimonium Flavianum:

"Now, there was about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works,--a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."

This passage is now and has been for centuries regarded as a forgery. Before moving on to this I wish to deal with the common assertion that this is NOT a forgery but an interpolation.

In*ter`po*la"tion\, n. [L. interpolation an alteration made here and there: cf. F. interpolation.]
1. The act of introducing or inserting anything, especially that which is spurious or foreign.
2. That which is introduced or inserted, especially something foreign or spurious.
From Websters Revised Unabridged Dictionary

For"ger*y\, n.; pl. Forgeries. [Cf. F. forgerie.]
1. The act of forging metal into shape. [Obs.]
Useless the forgery Of brazen shield and spear. --Milton.
2. The act of forging, fabricating, or producing falsely; esp., the crime of fraudulently making or altering a writing or signature purporting to be made by another; the false making or material alteration of or addition to a written instrument for the purpose of deceit and fraud; as, the forgery of a bond. --Bouvier.
3. That which is forged, fabricated, falsely devised, or counterfeited.

Spurious
Spu"ri*ous\, a. [L. spurius.]
1. Not proceeding from the true source, or from the source pretended; not genuine; false; adulterate.
2. Not legitimate; bastard; as, spurious issue.



Again, from Websters. Obviously we are not referring to metal or bastards but rather the act of forging, fabricating or producing falsely; esp., the crime of fraudulently making or altering a writing or signature purporting to be made by another; the false making or material alteration of or addition to a written instrument for the purpose of deceit and fraud. If one was introducing something foreign or spurious into text you are making or altering a written text and purporting that it was made by another. Further, if you are introducing or inserting something that is spurious or foreign to a text without stating that it was YOU that inserted the statement into the text you are certainly altering a written instrument for the purpose of deceit...the deceit being that what you inserted was thus written by the author and not you. Thus, whether you wish to use semantics to say that it is a forgery or interpolation, the end result was to make a material alteration of a writing to purport that the alteration was produced by the original author and not you.

Moving on, this passage has also been said to be at least partly genuine. Apologists claime that passages of the TF are clearly genuine as they match the vocabulary of Josephus. Feldman, Strobel and McDowell all use this line of reasoning. The very simple refutation of this lies in two points. The first is that it DOES deviate from vocabulary used by Josephus and the second is that in NO form is it used by church fathers who would have quoted it to support arguments they were using against those who made the very same argument I make, that being there was then, as now, no historical evidence for Jesus.

Steve Mason, from Josephus and the New Testament (Peabody, Hendrickson publishers, 1992) states:
"the passage does not fit well with its context in Antiquities 18. . . Josephus is speaking of upheavals, but there is no upheaval here. He is pointing out the folly of Jewish rebels, governors, and troublemakers in general, but this passage is completely supportive of both Jesus and his followers. Logically, what should appear in this context ought to imply some criticism of the Jewish leaders and/or Pilate, but Josephus does not make any such criticism explicit. He says only that those who denounced Jesus were 'the leading men among us.' So, unlike the other episodes, this one has no moral, no lesson. Although Josephus begins the next paragraph by speaking of 'another outrage' that caused an uproar among the Jews at the same time (18.65), there is nothing in this paragraph that depicts any sort of outrage." (p. 165). Further: It uses words in ways that are not characteristic of Josephus. For example, the word translated "worker" in the phrase "worker of incredible deeds" is poietes in Greek, from which we get "poet." Etymologically, it means "one who does" and so it can refer to any sort of "doer." But in Josephus' day it had already come to have special reference to literary poets, and that is how he consistently uses it elsewhere (nine times) - to speak of Greek poets like Homer. Notice further that the phrase "they did not cease" has to be completed by the translator, for it is left incomplete in the text; the action which his followers ceased must be understood from the preceding phrase. This is as peculiar in Greek as it is in English, and such a construction is not found elsewhere in Josephus' writing. Again, the phrase "the tribe of the Christians" is peculiar. Josephus uses the word "tribe" (phyle) eleven other times. Once it denotes "gender," and once a "swarm" of locusts, but usually signfies distinct people, races, or nationalities: the Jews are a "tribe" (War 3.354; 7.327) as are the Taurians (War 2.366) and Parthians (War 2.379). It is very strange that Josephus should speak of the Christians as a distinct racial group, since he has just said that Jesus was a Jew condemned by Jewish leaders. (Notice, however, that some Christian authors of a later period came to speak of Christianity as a "third race.") (p. 169-170)

Ken Olson ("Eusebian Fabrication: The Testimonium Flavianum)
EUSEBIUS' APOLOGETIC WORKS
Eusebius quotes the _Testimonium_ in three of his works: the _Demonstratio Evangelica_, the _Historia Ecclesiastica_, and the _Theophany_. His purpose in quoting it in each case is to use Josephus as a witness to Jesus' good character in order to refute Jewish and pagan accusations against Jesus. In particular, Eusebius is concerned to refute the charge that Jesus was a GOHS, a term that can be translated as "charlatan" or "wizard" or "deceiver." Eusebius also answered this charge in his _Adversus Hieroclem_, which was written earlier than any of the three works previously mentioned. The _Demonstratio_ and the _Historia_ are difficult to date, particularly since modern scholarship holds that the latter was published in four editions. Most scholars consider the _Demonstratio_ to be the earlier work. It is likely that Eusebius worked on both texts simultaneously, but I take the reading of the _Testimonium_ in the _Demonstratio_ to be the earlier of the two. The _Theophany_ was one of Eusebius' latest works and has come down to us only in Syriac.
ADVERSUS HIEROCLEM
In the _Adversus Hieroclem_, the earliest of the works under consideration, Eusebius is concerned to refute the unfavorable comparison that Hierocles made between Jesus and Apollonius of Tyana in his _Lover of Truth_. Hierocles' work does not survive, but from what Eusebius says of it, Hierocles major source appears to have been Flavius Philostratus’ _Life of Apollonius_.
According to Mendelson’s analysis, Philostratus placed Apollonius in a category of intermediate beings between gods and men, and terms him a "sage" (SOFOS) or DAIMWN (Mendelson, 512). Eusebius rejects these categories. He tells us,
I … used to regard the man of Tyana having been, humanly speaking, a kind of sage [SOFON TINA], and I am still freely disposed to adhere to this opinion… Not so if anyone ventures… to overleap the bounds of humanity and transcend philosophy, and while repelling the charge of wizardry [GOHTEIAN] bind it in act rather than in name upon the man, using the mask of Pythagorean discipline to disguise what he really was. For in that case his reputation for us as a philosopher will be gone… and we shall detect in him a sophist in the truest sense… and a wizard [GOHS], if there ever was one, instead of a philosopher. (A.H. 5).
Mendelson observes that:
In Eusebius estimation, Apollonius was a good, but ordinary, man. Apollonius’ followers have mistakenly raised him above his true terrestrial station. As Eusebius asserts, "Apollonius was not fit to be classed, I will not say among philosophers, but even among men of integrity and good sense." (AH 4). For Eusebius the status of Apollonius amounts to a simple disjunction, "whether we ought to rank him among divine and philosophic men or among wizards." Since only one man, Jesus, can correspond to the first category, Eusebius is forced to conclude that Apollonius belongs to the class of "wizards and falsely wise men" (GOHTON KAI YEUDOSOFON, AH 38). [Mendelson, 519].
Thus we can distinguish three categories in Eusebius’ thought: the divine man, which includes Jesus alone; the wise man (SOFOS), which includes prophets and philosophers, and the wizard (GOHS) or false man. Eusebius says he would be willing to accept that Apollonius is a SOFOS, unless one insists on crediting the stories about him which claim he has a divine nature, in which case Eusebius concludes he must be a GOHS.
DEMONSTRATIO EVANGELICA
At the end of chapter four and the beginning of chapter five of the third book of the _Demonstratio Evangelica_, Eusebius promises to refute those who the either deny that Jesus worked any miracles at all or that, if he did, it was by wizardry (GOHTIXA) and deception (D.E. 109). Near the end of chapter five, Eusebius produces the _Testimonium_, which encapsulates the arguments he has made in the chapter, or elsewhere in the book, and attributes them to Josephus. As it appears in the _Demonstratio_, the _Testimonium_ reads:
GINETAI DE KAT’ EKEINON TON CRONON IHSOUS, SOFOS ANHR, EIGE ANDRA AUTON LEGEI XRH. HN GAR PARADOXWN ERGWN POIHTHS, DIDASKALOS ANQRWPWN TALHQH SEBOMENWN, KAI POLLOUS MEN IOUDAIKOU, POLLOUS DE KAI hHLLHNIKOU EPHGAGETO. hO CRISTOS hOUTOS HN, KAI AUTON ENDEIXEI TON PAR’ hHMIN ARCONTWN STAURWi EPITETIMHKOTOS PILATOU, OUK EPAUSANTO hOI TO PRWTON AGAPHSANTES. EFANE GAR AUTOIS TRITHN hHMERAN PALIN ZWN, TWN THEIWN PROFHTWN TAUTA TE KAI ALLA MYRIA PERI AUTOU EIRHKOTWN. hOQEN EISETI NUN APO TOUDE TWN CRISTIANWN OUK EPELIPE TO FULON.
About this time arose Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one should call him a man, for he was a maker of miraculous works, a teacher of men who revere the truth, and he won over many of the Jewish and even many of the Greek [nation]. He was the Christ; and although Pilate, upon an accusation from our rulers, condemned him to the cross, nevertheless those who had loved him earlier did not stop, for he appeared to them alive again on the third day, the divine prophets having foretold these and also myriads of other wonders about him. From that time to this the nation of Christians has not failed. (D.E. 124).
In what follows, I will examine the _Testimonium_ line by line and attempt to show how the entire passage fits Eusebius’ apologetic strategy.
"About this time arose Jesus, a wise man;" as we have seen, the "wise man" is for Eusebius the opposite of the GOHS, "wizard" or "deceiver." In _Adversus Hieroclem_ Eusebius argued that if he had to accept the supernatural feats attributed to Apollonius, he must regard him as a GOHS rather than a wise man (A.H. 5); here he has Josephus call Jesus a "wise man" and thus, implicitly, not a GOHS.
"if indeed one should call him a man, for he was a maker of miraculous works;" most modern scholars consider the first part of this quotation a Christian interpolation because it presupposes Jesus’ superhuman nature. For Eusebius, both Hebrew prophets and Greek philosophers can be wise men or sages. Even Porphyry, the critic of Christianity, is an ANHR SOFOS (D.E. 105). Jesus himself is "the prince of philosophers and the teacher of holy men" (D.E. 127). Unlike other wise men, however, Jesus alone has a divine or superhuman nature. The term PARADOXWN ERGWN POIHTHS is markedly Eusebian. POIHTHS never occurs in Josephus in the sense of "maker" rather than "poet," and the only time Josephus combines forms of PARADOXOS and POIHW it is in the sense of "acting contrary to custom" (A.J. 12.87) rather than "making miracles." Combining forms of PARADOXOS and POIHW in the sense of "miracle-making" is exceedingly common in Eusebius, but he seems to reserve the three words PARADOXOS, POIHW, and ERGON, used together, to describe Jesus (D.E. 114-115, 123, 125, H.E. 1.2.23)
"a teacher of men who revere the truth;" Eusebius wants to show that Jesus’ disciples, like their master, were not deceivers. They were men who revere the truth.
"and he won over many of the Jewish and even many of the Greek [nation]." It is sometimes argued that a Christian author would have known that Jesus did not attract many gentile followers during his ministry, but this is contradicted by Eusebius’ testimony. Elsewhere he reports of Jesus that "by teaching and miracles He revealed the powers of His Godhead to all equally whether Greeks or Jews" (D.E. 400). The paired opposition of Jews and Greeks is especially common in the first two books of the _Demonstratio_, where Eusebius claims, "Christianity is neither a form of Hellenism nor a form of Judaism" (D.E. 11). It is, in fact, the re-establishment of the religion of the patriarchs, who worshipped the one God but did not have the restrictions of the Mosaic law, and thus was "that third form of religion midway between Judaism and Hellenism" (D.E.: Ferrar 8, Migne 25a). The MEN… DE construction used in the _Testimonium_ situates the "nation" founded by Jesus nicely between the two other religions.
"He was the Christ;" few or no modern scholars accept that this is Josephan as it stands. This is almost universally admitted to be an interpolation by a Christian writer, although it is not necessarily Eusebian.
"and although Pilate, upon an accusation from our rulers, condemned him to the cross, nevertheless those who had loved him earlier did not stop;" following a suggestion in Meier, I have translated the genitive absolute as a concessive, rather than a temporal, clause (Meier, 78, n. 35). Meier does not go on to explain why the author of this passage should choose to highlight Jesus’ followers in the main clause and relegate Jesus’ crucifixion to a subordinate position. The mention of the crucifixion in this sentence establishes under what conditions Jesus’ followers did not abandon him. This is Eusebius’ central argument in D.E. 3.5. Eusebius’ opponents were not denying that Jesus was crucified by the Roman and Jewish authorities; this was probably a main part of their argument that Jesus was a GOHS. Eusebius, however, cleverly inverts this argument. If Jesus had been a deceiver, and his followers had been deceivers, would not self-interest have compelled them to abandon his teachings after they had witnessed the manner of his death at the hands of the authorities? The fact that they did not abandon Jesus after witnessing the punishments he had brought upon himself can only mean that the disciples had recognized some greater than normal virtue in their teacher. This argument is developed at great length in D.E. 3.5, but I shall quote only a part of it here, "Perhaps you will say that the rest were wizards no less than their guide. Yes – but surely they had all seen the end of their teacher, and the death to which He came. Why then after seeing his miserable end did they stand their ground?" (D.E. 111).
"for he appeared to them alive again on the third day, the divine prophets having foretold these and also myriads of other wonders about him." Nearly all modern scholars consider this a Christian interpolation. It is typical of Eusebius’ apologetic arguments, especially in the first two books of the _Demonstratio_, which are primarily directed at Jesus’ Jewish critics. As Norris observes, "[Eusebius] follows both Justin and Origen in suggesting that ancient prophecy, specifically Jewish prophecy, had indicated who Jesus would be and what he would do. His miracles are not to be set aside as based on magic but are to be accepted as predicted by the prophets" (Norris, 526).
"From that time to now the nation of Christians has not failed." In _Adversus Hieroclem_, Eusebius asks that those who consider Apollonius "a divine being and superior to a philosopher, in a word as one superhuman in his nature" to point out any of his effects that have lasted "to this day" (EISETI NUN; A.H. 7). Jesus according to Eusebius, has left such effects (EISETI KAI NUN; A.H. 4 x2). The word "Christians" is not found anywhere in Josephus, but "nation (FULON) of Christians" is found in Eusebius (H.E. 3.33.2, 3.33.3). In the first book of the _Demonstratio_, Eusebius argues that the Christians are the "nation" (EQNOS) promised to Abraham (D.E.: Ferrar 10, Migne 25c). He uses the terms FULON, EQNOS, and LAOS, pretty much interchangeably, to describe Christianity.
The _Testimonium_, then, corroborates many of the points Eusebius made in the first three books of the _Demonstratio Evangelica_. Norris observes that when Eusebius found the _Testimonium_, "it surely would have appeared too good to be true – as indeed it was" (Norris, 533). I will go farther than Norris and say that the _Testimonium_ follows Eusebius’ line of argument in the _Demonstratio_ so closely that it is not only very unlikely that it could have been written by Josephus, but it is unlikely it could have been written by any other Christian, or even by Eusebius for another work. There is nothing in the language or content of the _Testimonium_, as it appears in the _Demonstratio Evangelica_, that suggests it is anything other than a completely Eusebian composition.
HISTORIA ECCLESIASTICA
Eusebius cites the _Testimonium_ again in the _Historia Ecclesiastica_, in order to refute the pagan _Acts of Pilate_ (H.E. 11.9). As it appears in the _Historia_, the _Testimonium_ reads:
GINETAI DE KATA TOUTON TON CRONON IHSOUS, SOFOS ANHR, EI GE ANDRA AUTON LEGEI XRH. HN GAR PARADOXWN ERGWN POIHTHS, DIDASKALOS ANQRWPWN TWN hHDONHi TALHQH DECOMENWN, KAI POLLOUS MEN TWN IOUDAIWN, POLLOUS DE KAI APO TOU hHLLHNIKOU EPHGAGETO. hO CRISTOS hOUTOS HN, KAI AUTON ENDEIXEI TON PRWTWN ANDRWN PAR’ hHMIN STAURWi EPITETIMHKOTOS PILATOU, OUK EPAUSANTO hOI TO PRWTON AGAPHSANTES. EFANE GAR AUTOIS TRITHN ECWN hHMERAN PALIN ZWN, TWN THEIWN PROFHTWN TAUTA TE KAI ALLA MYRIA PERI AUTOU QAUMASIA EIRHKOTWN. EIS ETI TE NUN TWN CRISTIANWN APO TOUDE WNOMASMENON OUK EPELIPE TO FULON.
I will comment on a few of the differences between the two versions of the _Testimonium_.
hHDONHi DECOMENWN, "receive with pleasure," replaces SEBOMENWN, "revere" (or "revering"), and PRWTWN ANDRWN, "first men," replaces ARCONTWN, "rulers." Both hHDONHi DECOMENWN and PRWTWN ANDRWN are phrases found in Josephus for which I have been unable to find other parallels in Eusebius' writings. Are they signs of an authentic Josephan substratum lying beneath our present _Testimonium_?
I do not think so. For the reasons given above, it would be difficult to argue that our version of the _Testimonium_ does not show Eusebian influence. Further, the Eusebian version of the passage was originally composed for the _Demonstratio_, not the _Historia_. The _Demonstratio_ is the earlier text, and the _Testimonium_ is an encapsulation of arguments found in it that receive relatively little attention in the _Historia_. In particular, the main argument of D.E. 3.5, that the disciples continued affection for Jesus after his death is proof of his and their good character, is missing from the _Historia_. This means that Eusebius added the two Josephan phrases to his own version of the _Testimonium_. But if Eusebius is capable of isolating these two phrases in Josephus and adding them to his work, there is no special reason to believe he took them from a passage about Jesus. The phrases themselves have no necessary connection with Jesus and could have been taken from elsewhere in Josephus writings ( e.g., hHDONHi DECASQAI from A.J. 18.59). These two phrases are not a sufficient basis on which to infer an authentic Josephan version of the _Testimonium_.
"Still to this time the nation of Christians, named for him, has not failed." The first phrase, EIS ETI TE NUN, occurs nowhere in Josephus, but is found elsewhere in Eusebius (H.E. 2.1.7). EIS ETI NUN is a very common phrase in the _Historia Ecclesiastica_. The observation that the Christians take their name from Christ is fairly commonplace (D.E. 80, 131, H.E. 1.3.9-10), occurring also in Tacitus (_Annals_ 44). In its present context, however, it suits Eusebius’ argument well, "Then, moreover, let him who supports the contention opposed to mine, inform me if any enchanter (TIS TWN… GOHTWN) that ever existed has ever taken into his head to institute a new nation (NEOU EQNOUS) called after his own name?" (D.E. 131).
CONCLUSION
The agreements between the version of the _Testimonium_ found in _Antiquities_ 18 and that found in the _Historia Ecclesiastica_ against the version found in the _Demonstratio Evangelica_ show that it was the _Historia's_ version that Christian scribes interpolated into our texts of Josephus. They accepted on Eusebius' authority that the _Antiquities_ ought to contain such a text and "corrected" their texts according to the reading found in the _Historia Ecclesiastica_. The version of the _Testimonium_ found in our texts of the _Antiquities_ is the Eusebian version, and, if there ever was a Josephan version, that fact remains to be demonstrated.

We know very well from Eusebius’ himself that he was very willing to lie in the name of Christianity. In his Praeparatio Evangelica 12.31, listing the ideas Plato supposedly got from Moses, he includes the idea:
That it is necessary sometimes to use falsehood as a medicine for those who need such an approach. [As said in Plato's Laws 663e by the Athenian:] 'And even the lawmaker who is of little use, if even this is not as he considered it, and as just now the application of logic held it, if he dared lie to young men for a good reason, then can't he lie? For falsehood is something even more useful than the above, and sometimes even more able to bring it about that everyone willingly keeps to all justice.' [then by Clinias:] 'Truth is beautiful, stranger, and steadfast. But to persuade people of it is not easy.' You would find many things of this sort being used even in the Hebrew scriptures, such as concerning God being jealous or falling asleep or getting angry or being subject to some other human passions, for the benefit of those who need such an approach.

Then to the idea that if the TF were at least PARTIALLY genuine, the church fathers would have used what part there was to support their arguments. Consider Origen, who quoted from the Antiquities of the Jews in order to establish the historical existence of John the Baptist even though there is no evidence that the historicity of John the Baptist was questioned. If Origen found it useful to quote Josephus in order to establish the historicity of John, how much more so would Origen be eager to quote Josephus in order to establish the historicity of Jesus? Indeed, Origen cites Josephus to establish the existence of the Baptist even though Celsus represented the Jew in his discourse as accepting the historicity of John (Contra Celsus 1.47). Celsus grants that Jesus performed "miracles" for the sake of argument but attributes them to sorcery. Interestingly, Eusebius' motive for quoting Josephus in the Evangelical Demonstration is precisely to establish that Jesus performed true miracles, not merely to establish the historicity of Jesus. Thus, there was a motive for the early Church Fathers to have quoted a reconstructed Testimonium. It is not quoted by Chrysostom (c. 354-407 ad) even though he often refers to Josephus in his voluminous writings. It is not quoted by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (c. 858-886 ad) even though he wrote three articles concerning Josephus, which strongly implies that his copy of Josephus' Antiquities did not contain the passage. Neither Justin Martyr (110-165 AD), nor Clement of Alexandria (153-217 ad), nor Origen (c.185-254 AD), who all made extensive reference to ancient authors in their defense of Christianity, has mentioned this supposed testimony of Josephus. Philo (20 BCE-50 CE), one of the most renowned writers the Jewish race has produced, was born before the beginning of the Christian Era, and lived for many years after the time at which Jesus is supposed to have died. His birthplace was in or near Jerusalem, where Jesus is said to have preached, to have performed miracles, to have been crucified, and to have risen from the dead. Had Jesus done these things, the writings of Philo would certainly contain some record of his life. Yet this philosopher, who must have been familiar with Herod's massacre of the innocents, and with the preaching, miracles and death of Jesus, had these things occurred; who wrote an account of the Jews, covering this period, and discussed the very questions that are said to have been near to Christ's heart, never once mentioned the name of, or any deed connected with, the reputed Savior of the world.

NONE of these and many more church fathers who made great defense of Christianity against those who were, in fact, making arguments such as mine made ANY mention, either in whole or in part, of the TF in their defense. Now, this has been called the "argument from silence" a logic fallacy. The argument from silence (also called argumentum ad silentio in Latin) is generally a conclusion based on silence or lack of contrary evidence. In the field of classical studies, it often refers to the deduction from the lack of references to a subject in the available writings of an author to the conclusion that he was ignorant of it. When used as a logical proof in pure reasoning, the argument is classed among the fallacies, but an argument from silence can be a valid and convincing form of abductive reasoning. From Wikipedia (wouldn't want to be guilty of an "interpolation").
If we examine abductive reasoning: Abduction, or inference to the best explanation, is a method of reasoning in which one chooses the hypothesis that would, if true, best explain the relevant evidence. Abductive reasoning starts from a set of accepted facts and infers their most likely, or best, explanations. The term abduction is also sometimes used to just mean the generation of hypotheses to explain observations or conclusions, but the former definition is more common both in philosophy and computing. Also from Wiki.

If one uses abductive reasoning here, the answer to the question of why did these church fathers not use the TF, either in whole or in some part, is that it was NOT THERE prior to Eusebius. This is the simplest explanation that best fits the question. Indeed Louis H. Feldman writes (Josephus, Judaism and Christianity, p. 57): "The fact that an ancient table of contents, already referred to in the Latin version of the fifth or sixth century, omits mention of the Testimionium (though, admittedly, it is selective, one must find it hard to believe that such a remarkable passage would be omitted by anyone, let alone by a Christian, summarizing the work) is further indication that there was no such notice..."
Feldman, again “a considerable number of Christian writers - Pseudo-Justin and Theophilus in the second century, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Tertullian, Hippolytus and Orgen in the third century, and Methodius and Pseudo-Eustathius in the early fourth century - who knew Jeosphus and cited from his works do not refer to this passage, though one would imagine that it would be the first passage that a Christian apologist would cite. In particular, Origen (Contra Celsum 1.47 and Commentary on Matthew 10.17), who certainly knew Book 18 of the Antiquities and cites five passages from it, explicitly states that Josephus did not believe in Jesus as Christ. The first to cite the Testimonium is Eusebius (c. 324); and even after him, we may note, there are eleven Christian writers who cite Josephus but not the Testimonium. In fact, it is not until Jerome in the early fifth century that we have another reference to it."
-Josephus (CE 37-c.100), The Cambridge History of Judaism vol. 3 (1999) pp. 911 - 912.
Dr. Louis Feldman goes on to acknowledge that almost NO scholars regard the Testimonium as entirely genuine. In a survey of scholars conducted by him he found:
4 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely genuine, 6 as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation. (Dr. Louis Feldman; Josephus and Modern Scholarship, W. de Gruter press, 1984)
As said previously, trying to say that INTERPOLATION is somehow DIFFERENT from FORGERY is simply attempting to play a semantics game. Interpolation is the insertion into the text that which is spurious and foreign for the purpose of deceiving the reader into believing that the insertion was written by the author. Now, given that even a serious scholar such as Dr. Feldman cannot say the Testimonium is genuine without SOME interpolation how is it that any serious historian could then accept ANY PART of the Testimonium as historical evidence? There is simply too much evidence to show that this reference is a Christian FORGERY and given that there is no way to know what PART of it MIGHT have been written by Josephus or if ANY of it was written by Josephus it should thus should be disregarded.

Round two will continue with Josephus regarding the "Jamsian Reference"

[godshoulddie]

Round 2, the “James” reference:

We continue with Josephus and the second reference from Josephus used by the Christian Apologist, the “James” reference:

AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king [Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrim without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.

This passage comes from Chapter 9 of book Twenty of the Antiquity of the Jews and is relating how the high priest Ananus took advantage of the death of the Roman governor Festus in 62 CE to organize a mob to stone James.
Throughout this section of the Antiquities Josephus makes numerous references to “Jesus”. Indeed, a few short paragraphs later we find:

And now Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, became the successor of Jesus, the son of Damneus, in the high priesthood, which the king had taken from the other; on which account a sedition arose between the high priests, with regard to one another; for they got together bodies of the boldest sort of the people, and frequently came, from reproaches, to throwing of stones at each other.

The name "Jesus" was as common among the Jews as is William or George with us. In the writings of Josephus, we find accounts of a number of Jesuses. There is the above passage concerning two Jesuses who, one after the other became High Priest. Further there was Jesus, the son of Sapphias, the founder of a seditious band of mariners; another was Jesus, the captain of the robbers whose followers fled when they heard of his arrest. Origen makes it clear that Josephus DID NOT believe Jesus to be the Christ. Church father Origen (c. 185-c.254) in his Contra Celsus, Book I, Chapter XLVII:
"For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ)--the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice"

We see here that Origen tells us clearly that if the Jesus reference were true then Josephus should have related the tale of Jesus’ in relation to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple as they put to death Christ. Yet Josephus does not do so and instead tells us that these calamities happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of the James the Just, brother of Jesus. To be more specific, Jesus Bar (son of) Damneus. Josephus goes into long detail about the lives of numerous personages of relatively little import, including several Jesuses. It is inconceivable that he would devote only a short, almost dismissive sentence to someone even remotely resembling the character found in the New Testament. If the gospel tale constituted "history," Josephus's elders would certainly be aware of Jesus's purported assault on the temple, for example, and the historian, who was obviously interested in instances of messianic agitation, would surely have reported it, in detail. After all, Josephus reports to us three false messiahs: Yehuda of Galilee, Theudas and Benjamin the Egyptian. He goes into detail with these figures telling us of their preaching and of their fates, for instance:

NOW it came to pass, while Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the river Jordan; for he told them he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it; and many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them; who, falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem. This was what befell the Jews in the time of Cuspius Fadus's government

Yet Josephus fails to report to us the significant details of another messianic agitator, Jesus. He fails to report the agitations at the Temple. He fails to report to us Jesus “Christ” triumphant entry enter Jerusalem, his ministry, his betrayal, trial or crucifixion and then fails to report to us that the calamities that befell the Jews, the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, were the result of this Jesus’ death. ALL of that he would and should have reported even if he didn’t consider Jesus “Christ” THE “Christ” as Josephus reported on MANY messianic agitators. No, instead he relates to us what befell James , brother of Jesus Bar Damneus. What we have, then, is another Christian “interpolation”, the insertion of the “who was called Christ”. The passage concerning James, with the “who was called Christ” passage removed, then makes sense. It is telling us that James, brother of Jesus Bar Damneus, was put to death by the high priest Ananus as part of a struggle over the high priesthood of Jerusalem.

G. A. Wells (Did Jesus Exist? London/Pemberton Press 1986) states, "The words have the character of a brief marginal gloss, later incorporated innocently into the text. Josephus probably wrote of the death of a Jewish Jerusalem leader called James, and a Christian reader thought the reference must be to James the brother of the Lord who, according to Christian tradition, led the Jerusalem Chruch about the time in question. This reader accordingly noted in the margin: 'James = the brother of Jesus, him called Christ' (cf. the wording of Mt. 1:16: 'Jesus, him called Christ') and a later copyist took this note as belonging to the text and incorporated it. Other interpolations are known to have originated in precisely such a way." (p. 11)

Earl J. Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle; Ottawa Canadian Humanist Publications 1999) elaborates: "If he [Josephus] knew nothing else about James or chose to say nothing more, he would simply have used some equivalent to 'a certain James' or 'someone named James.' And what in fact do we find in the Greek? The words referring directly to James are: Iakobos onoma autoi. Translations render this 'James by name' or 'whose name was James' or 'a man named James.' Such a phrase could have stood perfectly well on its own (with a slight change in grammatical form), and had the reference to a brother Jesus added to it by a Christian interpolator." (pp. 216-217)

Steve Mason (Josephus and the New Testament; Peabody/Hendrickson publications 1992) explains that Josephus would not have assumed his readership to understand the term:
First, the word "Christ" (Greek christos) would have special meaning only for a Jewish audience. In Greek it means simply "wetted" or "anointed." Within the Jewish world, this was an extremely significant term because anointing was the means by which the kings and high priests of Israel had been installed. The pouring of oil over their heads represented their assumption of God-given authority (Exod 29:9; 1 Sam 10:1). The same Hebrew word for "anointed" was mashiach, which we know usually as the noun Messiah, "the anointed [one]." Although used in the OT of reigning kings and high priests, many Jews of Jesus' day looked forward to an end-time prophet, priest, king, or someone else who would be duly anointed.
But for someone who did not know the Jewish tradition, the adjective "wetted" would sound most peculiar. Why would Josephus say that this man Jesus was "the Wetted"? Since Josephus is usually sensitive to his audience and pauses to explain unfamiliar terms or aspects of Jewish life, it is very strange that he would make the bald assertion, without explanation, that Jesus was "Christ."

The fact that the term "Christ" appears only in Ant. 18.3.3 and here in 20.9.1 seems to do little to suggest the authenticity of the phrase. It has been often observed that Josephus avoided the subject of messianic expectation. John D. Crossan (The Historical Jesus: The life of a Mediterranean peasant; Harper/Collins 1991) states:
The more important point, however, is that neither there nor anywhere else does Josephus talk about messianic claimants. He makes no attempt to explain the Jewish traditions of popular kingship that might make a brigand chief or a rural outlaw think not just of rural rebellion but of regal rule. The reason is, of course, quite clear and was seen already. For Josephus, Jewish apocalyptic and messianic promises were fulfilled in Vespasian. It is hardly likely, that Josephus would explain too clearly or underline too sharply the existence of alternative messianic fulfillments before Vespasian, especially from the Jewish lower classes. (The Historical Jesus, p. 199)
Even in the passage where Josephus seems to describe Vespasian as the fulfillment of the messianic oracles, Josephus does not make use of the term "Christ."

Jewish scholar Hayyim Ben Yehoshua (Refuting Missionaries: The myth of Historical Jesus) states:
In the Christian edited versions of the Jewish Antiquities there are two passages dealing with Jesus as portrayed in Christian religious works. Neither of these passages are found in the original version of the Jewish Antiquities which was preserved by the Jews. The first passage (XVII, 3, 3) was quoted by Eusebius writing in c. 320 C.E. and so we can conclude that it was added in some time between the time Christians got hold of the Jewish Antiquities and c. 320 C.E. It is not known when the other passage (XX, 9, 1) was added in. Neither passage is based on any reliable sources. It is fraudulent to claim that these passages were written by Josephus and that they provide evidence for Jesus. They were written by Christian redactors and were based purely on Christian belief.

Indeed, according to Catholic tradition James the Just is NOT the brother of Jesus but his COUSIN. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
James is without doubt the Bishop of Jerusalem (Acts 12:17, 15:13, 21:18; Galatians 1:19; 2:9-12) and the author of the first Catholic Epistle. His identity with James the Less (Mark 15:40) and the Apostle James, the son of Alpheus (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18), although contested by many Protestant critics, may also be considered as certain.

James the son of Alpheus is further identified with the SISTER of Mary, mother of Christ, that being Mary of Cleophas or Clopas. From the Catholic Encyclopedia again:
Mary of Cleophas, or more correctly Clopas (Klopas), the sister of Mary the Mother of Christ, is the same as Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joseph, or Joses. As married women are not distinguished by the addition of their father's name, Mary of Clopas must be the wife of Clopas, and not his daughter, as has been maintained.

This is significant as the Catholics further identify Hegesippus as stating that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, uncle to Jesus and identifies James as the son of Clopas as when Hegesippus identifies James, Joseph and Jude as the sons of CLOPAS. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Jude is the writer of the last of the Catholic Epistles (Jude 1). He is with good reason identified by Catholic commentators with the "Judas Jacobi" ("Jude the brother of James" in the Douay Version)


Hegesippus? Hegesippus is said to have been a Christian chronicler who to have written about James, the brother of Jesus as well:

James, the Lord's brother, succeeds to the government of the Church, in conjunction with the apostles. He has been universally called the Just, from the days of the Lord down to the present time. For many bore the name of James; but this one was holy from his mother's womb. He drank no wine or other intoxicating liquor nor did he eat flesh; no razor came upon his head; he did not anoint himself with oil, nor make use of the bath. He alone was permitted to enter the holy place for he did not wear any woollen garment, but fine linen only. He alone, I say, was wont to go into the temple: and he used to be found kneeling on his knees, begging forgiveness for the people-so that the skin of his knees became horny like that of a camel's, by reason of his constantly bending the knee in adoration to God, and begging forgiveness for the people. Therefore, in consequence of his pre-eminent justice, he was called the Just, and Oblias which signifies in Greek Defence of the People, and Justice, in accordance with what the prophets declare concerning him.
Now some persons belonging to the seven sects existing among the people, which have been before described by me in the Notes, asked him: "What is the door of Jesus? " And he replied that He was the Saviour. In Consequence of this answer, some believed that Jesus is the Christ. But the sects before mentioned did not believe, either in a resurrection or in the coming of One to requite every man according to his works; but those who did believe, believed because of James. So, when many even of the ruling class believed, there was a commotion among the Jews, and scribes, and Pharisees, who said: "A little more, and we shall have all the people looking for Jesus as the Christ.
They came, therefore, in a body to James, and said: "We entreat thee, restrain the people: for they are gone astray in their opinions about Jesus, as if he were the Christ. We entreat thee to persuade all who have come hither for the day of the passover, concerning Jesus. For we all listen to thy persuasion; since we, as well as all the people, bear thee testimony that thou art just, and showest partiality to none. Do thou, therefore, persuade the people not to entertain erroneous opinions concerning Jesus: for all the people, and we also, listen to thy persuasion. Take thy stand, then, upon the summit of the temple, that from that elevated spot thou mayest be clearly seen, and thy words may be plainly audible to all the people. For, in order to attend the passover, all the tribes have congregated hither, and some of the Gentiles also."
The aforesaid scribes and Pharisees accordingly set James on the summit of the temple, and cried aloud to him, and said: "O just one, whom we are all bound to obey, forasmuch as the people is in error, and follows Jesus the crucified, do thou tell us what is the door of Jesus, the crucified." And he answered with a loud voice: "Why ask ye me concerning Jesus the Son of man? He Himself sitteth in heaven, at the right hand of the Great Power, and shall come on the clouds of heaven."
And, when many were fully convinced by these words, and offered praise for the testimony of James, and said, "Hosanna to the son of David," then again the said Pharisees and scribes said to one another, "We have not done well in procuring this testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, that they may be afraid, and not believe him." And they cried aloud, and said: "Oh! oh! the just man himself is in error." Thus they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah: "Let us away with the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore shall they eat the fruit of their doings." So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to one another: "Let us stone James the Just." And they began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said: "I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
And, while they were thus stoning him to death, one of the priests, the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom testimony is borne by Jeremiah the prophet, began to cry aloud, saying: "Cease, what do ye? The just man is praying for us." But one among them, one of the fullers, took the staff with which he was accustomed to wring out the garments he dyed, and hurled it at the head of the just man.
And so he suffered martyrdom; and they buried him on the spot, and the pillar erected to his memory still remains, close by the temple. This man was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ.
And shortly after Vespasian besieged Judaea, taking them captive.

As we can see these two tales differ significantly. Where the tale from Josephus tells us of a series of maneuvers begun by Ananus as a matter of succession to the high priesthood culminating in a trial and the stoning of James in Hegesippus’ tale we find that James is seized by the scribes and Pharisees, put upon the temples roof to denounce to the crowd below Jesus as Christ and is then killed in a riot because of his refusal to renounce the divinity of Jesus. Further, James’ death is dated to 62 as, according to Josephus, James" met his death after the death of the procurator Porcius Festus yet before Luceius Albinus took office (Antiquities 20,9) — which has thus been dated to 62. Yet Hegesippus tells us that shortly after the death of James Vespasian besieges Judea. This did not occur until 66. We further have the writings of Hegesippus telling us that James is NOT the brother of Jesus, but the son of Clopas. Catholics take this to mean that he is Jesus’ cousin.

The American theologian Robert M. Price (Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 2000)
has recently questioned the historical authenticity of Hegesippus: "I suspect that 'He-gesippus' is a garbled version of 'Josephus', made into a catch-all pedigree for whatever tradition or belief one wished to retroject into an earlier 'apostolic' period."

So, with regards to the “James” reference from Josephus, we see yet another Christian interpolation. An insertion by early Christians into the reference of James, brother of Jesus Bar Damneus, who was involved in a struggle for the high priesthood of Jerusalem with Ananus. . We then have a tale from a person named Hegesippus, whose tale bears no relation to Josephus’ tale and tries to tell the reader that James is the brother of Jesus even though Hegesippus then goes on to tell us that James is the son of a CLOPAS. We then further have an entire sect of Christianity who reject James as the brother of Jesus Christ.
Which one is correct? Therein lies the problem. Whole churches of theologians have stated contradictory statements about this passage…James is, no he isn’t, the brother of Christ. Ask yourself, then, what is the simplest explanation? That would be that the “who was called Christ” is a Christian insertion into a tale, which, when removed, then tells us the tale of the death of James, brother of Jesus bar Damneus, who is stoned to death by the supporters of Ananus. When Ananus is removed, James’ brother, Jesus, SON OF DAMNEUS, is made high priest.



Round 3: Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius

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[godshoulddie]

Round 3: Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Suetonius:

We now move on to other sources for the Christian apologist in their attempt to show a historical Jesus. First we have Tacitus.
Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (56-117 CE) was a Roman Senator and historian. In his Annals, Book XV, Chapter 44 he supposedly wrote the following:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

There are textual inconsistencies to consider. There could not have been multitudes of Christians in Rome in 64CE as there were not vast multitudes of Christians in Judea in 64CE. Pontius Pilates rank was PREFECT, not PROCURATOR, something that the roman SENATOR Tacitus would have known or easily been able to have researched. The Neronian persecution of Christians is unrecorded by any other historian of the day and supposedly took place at the very time when Paul was purportedly freely preaching at Rome (Acts 28:30-31), facts that cast strong doubt on whether or not it actually happened. Tacitus would have had access to all the records of the Roman senate and could have therefore known the name JESUS rather than CHRISTUS, which he would have known was a Greek word for “anointed”.

Once again we have the silence of the church fathers to consider. The following church fathers ALL wrote of the persecution of Christians by the Romans: Tertullian, Lactantius, Suetonius , Eusebius, Augustine of Hippo and Clement of Alexandria and yet they make no reference to Tacitus when discussing Christian persecution by Nero even though church fathers such as Tertullian do quote Tacitus on other subjects. Eusebius, in discussing this persecution, does not avail himself of the Tacitean passage, which he surely would have done had it existed at the time. Eusebius's discussion is very short, indicating he was lacking source material; the passage in Tacitus would have provided him a very valuable resource. Why would church fathers who all wrote of early church martyrs and persecution not mention this quotation from Tacitus? Noted historians such as including Josephus, Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, and Epictetus make no mention of it. Pliny The Elder only mentions the fire in passing. Josephus (37-100ad) was a contemporary of Nero (37-68ad), who had an audience with him & even persuaded him to release Jewish hostages on the very eve of the Jewish revolt, yet Josephus fails to note Nero persecuting Christians for the fire of Rome.

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c71-135) writes of Nero in the Lives of the Caesers: Life of Nero. On page 157 he writes the following:
But he showed no greater mercy to the people or the walls of his capital. When someone in a general conversation said: When I am dead, Earth be consumed by fire he rejoined "Nay, rather while I live," and his action was wholly in accord. For under cover of displeasure at the ugliness of the old buildings and the narrow, crooked streets, he set fire to the city so openly that several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his chamberlains although they caught them on their estates with tow and fire-brands, while some granaries near the Golden House, whose room he particularly desired, were demolished by engines of war and then set on fire, because their walls were of stone. For six days and seven nights destruction raged, while the people were driven for shelter to monuments and tombs. At that time, besides an immense number of dwellings, the houses of leaders of old were burned, still adorned with trophies of victory, and the temples of the gods vowed and dedicated by the kings and later in the Punic and Gallic wars, and whatever else interesting and noteworthy had survived from antiquity. Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecena and exulting, as he said, in "the beauty of the flames," he sang the whole of the "Sack of Ilium," in his regular stage costume. Furthermore, to gain from this calamity too all the spoil and booty possible, while promising the removal of the debris and dead bodies free of cost he allowed no one to approach the ruins of his own property; and from the contributions which he not only received, but even demanded, he nearly bankrupted the provinces and exhausted the resources of individuals (Source:http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Nero*.html).

Cassius Dio (c165-229?) writes in his Roman History:
16 After this Nero set his heart on accomplishing what had doubtless always been his desire, namely to make an end of the whole city and realm during his lifetime. 2 At all events, he, like others before him, used to call Priam wonderfully fortunate in that he had seen his country and his throne destroyed together. Accordingly he secretly sent out men who pretended to be drunk or engaged in other kinds of mischief, and caused them at first to set fire to one or two or even several buildings in different parts of the city, so that people were at their wits' end, not being able to find any beginning of the trouble nor to put an end to it, though they constantly were aware of many strange p113sights and sounds. 3 For there was naught to be seen but many fires, as in a camp, and naught to be heard from the talk of the people except such exclamations as "This or that is afire," "Where?" "How did it happen?" "Who kindled it?" "Help?" Extraordinary excitement laid hold on all the citizens in all parts of the city, and they ran about, some in one direction and some in another, as if distracted. 4 Here men while assisting their neighbours would learn that their own premises were afire; there others, before 20 reached them that their own houses had caught fire, would be told that they were destroyed. Those who were inside their houses would run out into the narrow streets thinking that they could save them from the outside, while people in the streets would rush into the dwellings in the hope of accomplishing something inside. 5 There was shouting and wailing without end, of children, women, men, and the aged all together, so that no one could see thing or understand what was said by reason of the smoke and the shouting; and for this reason some might be seen standing speechless, as if they were dumb. 6 Meanwhile many who were carrying out their goods and many, too, who were stealing the property of others, kept running into one another and falling over their burdens. It was not possible to go forward nor yet to stand still, but people pushed and were pushed in turn, upset others and were themselves upset. 7 Many were suffocated, many were trampled underfoot; in a word, no evil that can possibly happen to people in such a crisis failed to befall to them. They could not even escape anywhere easily; and if anybody did save himself from the immediate danger, he would fall into another and perish.
17 Now this did not all take place on a single day, but it lasted for several days and nights alike. Many houses were destroyed for want of anyone to help save them, and many others were set on fire by the same men who came to lend assistance; for the soldiers, including the night watch, having an eye to plunder, instead of putting out fires, kindled new ones. 2 While such scenes were occurring at various points, a wind caught up the flames and carried them indiscriminately against all the buildings that were left. Consequently no one concerned himself any longer about goods or houses, but all the survivors, standing where they thought they were safe, gazed upon what appeared to be a number of scattered islands on fire or many cities all burning at the same time. 3 There was no longer any grieving over personal losses, but they lamented the public calamity, recalling how once before most of the city had been thus laid waste by the Gauls. 18 While the whole population was in this state of mind and many, crazed by the disaster, were leaping into the very flames, Nero ascended to the roof of the palace, from which there was the best general view of the greater part of the conflagration, and assuming the lyre-player's garb, he sang the "Capture of Troy," as he styled the song himself, though to the enemies of the spectators it was the Capture of Rome.
2 The calamity which the city then experienced has no parallel before or since, except in the Gallic invasion. The whole Palatine hill, the theatre of Taurus, and nearly two-thirds of the remainder of the city were burned, and countless persons perished. 3 There was no curse that the populace did not invoke upon Nero, though they did not mention his name, but simply cursed in general terms those who had set the city on fire
(Roman History by Cassius Dio, publish in Volume VIIII, Loeb Classical Library, 1925)

Suetonius and Tacitus were contemporaries and yet we find NO mention of Neros’ supposed persecution of the Christians. NO mention of Nero blaming Christians AT ALL. Why didn’t Suetonius, no lover of Nero, mention any of this? Dio, also no great lover of Nero fails to mention the blame of Christians by Nero. Why? Because it didn’t happen. We have no mention of the Tacitean passage by Church Fathers who were discussing persecution of Christians by the Emperors. We have no mention by historians such as Josephus, who was a CONTEMPORARY of Nero and even had an audience before him.

Then, finally, we Tacitus himself telling us that quite clearly that Nero DID NOT set the fire but was in Antium at the time and, in fact, went to great lengths to save the city. From the Annals:
Nero was at Antium. He returned to the city only when the fire was approaching the mansion he had built to link the Gardens of Maecenas to the Palatine. The flames could not be prevented from overwhelming the whole of the Palatine, including his palace. Nevertheless, for the relief of the homeless, fugitive masses he threw open the Field of Mars, including Agrippa's public buildings, and even his own Gardens. Nero also constructed emergency accommodation for the destitute multitude. Food was brought from Ostia and neighboring towns, and the price of corn was cut to less than ¼ sesterce a pound. Yet these measures, for all their popular character, earned no gratitude. For a rumor had spread that, while the city was burning, Nero had gone on his private stage and, comparing modern calamities with ancient, had sung of the destruction of Troy.
The blame of the Christians and the subsequent text regarding Pilate and Christus is, in fact, a Christian insertion into the text.



Next we have Pliny the Younger. In a letter from Pliny to the emperor Trajan Pliny writes:
It is my practice, my lord, to refer to you all matters concerning which I am in doubt. For who can better give guidance to my hesitation or inform my ignorance? I have never participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian, it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be punished.
Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.
Soon accusations spread, as usually happens, because of the proceedings going on, and several incidents occurred. An anonymous document was published containing the names of many persons. 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.
They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food--but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

Quite simply…SO? No one has denied that Christians existed in the second century when this letter was written (110CE). Pliny is simply writing to Trajan and asking him what to do with them. There is no mention of Jesus or any of the Jesus tale nor anything else that might make this useful for establishing ANYTHING of historical value OTHER than there were Christians in Pontus and Bithynia at the time of his governorship.

Next we have Suetonius, again. In Lives of the Twelve Caesers: Life of Claudius, dating to around 110 CE, Suetonius wrote that the emperor Claudius "drove the Jews out of Rome, who at the suggestion of Chrestus were constantly rioting." The passage in Latin is as follows:
Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.
The first and simplest proof that this cannot refer to Jesus is that Claudius reigned from 41-54 CE and Jesus supposed death occurred around 30 CE. Jesus could not have been in Rome exhorting crowds of Jews to riot at that time. Further, Chrestus was a common name of the time.

So, another forgery, a mention of Christians in the second century but not of Jesus or anything about JESUS and a mention of someone named Chrestus or Chrestos in a time when Jesus could not have been in Rome.

Round four: Thallus and the Babylonian Talmud

[godshoulddie]

Round 4: Thallus and the Babylonian Talmud

We now move on to Thallus. Thallus was a historian who wrote in Greek. It is uncertain when he wrote, but it is said to be in the early 2nd century. His works are all lost, but a few fragments have reached us in later Ancient and Medieval writers.

As has been noted by many, we have no actual fragments of anything regarding the following passage. Instead, Thallus is referred to by others.

George Syncellus, a 9th-century monk, composed a world chronicle, quoting verbatim from numerous previous chroniclers, one of whom being the 3rd-century Christian chronicler Julius Africanus. In one such case, Africanus is quoted regarding "what followed the savior's passion and life-giving resurrection" as follows:
This event followed each of his deeds, and healings of body and soul, and knowledge of hidden things, and his resurrection from the dead, all sufficiently proven to the disciples before us and to his apostles: after the most dreadful darkness fell over the whole world, the rocks were torn apart by an earthquake and much of Judaea and the rest of the land was torn down. Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his Histories, without reason it seems to me. For....how are we to believe that an eclipse happened when the moon was diametrically opposite the sun?

So, we have then a 9th century monk, George Syncellus, telling us what Julius Africanus said that Thallus said.

However, many apologists try to say that this is not true as Africanus goes on to state:
In fact, let it be so. Let the idea that this happened seize and carry away the multitude, and let the cosmic prodigy be counted as an eclipse of the sun according to its appearance. Phlegon reports that in the time of Tiberius Caesar, during the full moon, a full eclipse of the sun happened, from the sixth hour until the ninth. Clearly this is our eclipse! What is common about an earthquake, an eclipse, rocks torn apart, a rising of the dead, and such a huge cosmic movement? At the very least, over a long period, no conjunction this great is remembered. But it was a godsent darkness, because the Lord happened to suffer, and the Bible, in Daniel, supports that seventy spans of seven years would come together up to this time.

Thus the apologist tries to state that Africanus is supported by further evidence of Phlegon, whom he quotes.

Phlegon, of Tralles in Asia Minor, Greek writer and freedman of the emperor Hadrian, lived in the 2nd century. Here is what Phlegon is supposed to have said according to Eusebius:
Jesus Christ..underwent his passion in the 18th year of Tiberius [32 AD]. Also at that time in another Greek compendium we find an event recorded in these words: "the sun was eclipsed, Bithynia was struck by an earthquake, and in the city of Nicaea many buildings fell." All these things happened to occur during the Lord's passion. In fact, Phlegon, too, a distinguished reckoner of Olympiads, wrote more on these events in his 13th book, saying this: "Now, in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad [32 AD], a great eclipse of the sun occurred at the sixth hour [noon] that excelled every other before it, turning the day into such darkness of night that the stars could be seen in heaven, and the earth moved in Bithynia, toppling many buildings in the city of Nicaea."
This is reported by Eusebius and Syncellus. That Eusebius is trying to link the earthquake and eclipse to the death of Jesus is obvious as is shown by the quote. However, Phlegon does not link this to Christ but reports of an earthquake in BITHYNIA, on the coast of the Black Sea some five hundred miles from Jerusalem so there is no way this quake would have been felt near the crucifixion--and a magnificent noontime eclipse, whose location is not clear. If the eclipse was also in Bithynia, as the Phlegon quote implies but does not entail, it also could not have been seen in Jerusalem, any more than partially, since the track of a total eclipse spans only 100 miles and runs from west to east (Jerusalem is due south).(Richard Carrier, "Cultural History of the Lunar and Solar Eclipse in the Early Roman Empire," Masters Thesis Columbia University, 1998)

.

It has been further asserted that Thallus or THALLOS was referred to as a freedman of Tiberius:
The passage in question (Antiquities of the Jews 18.167) does not have the word THALLOS in any extant manuscript or translation, but ALLOS. The addition of the letter theta was conjectured by Hudson in 1720, on the argument that ALLOS didn't make sense, and that Thallus was the attested name of an imperial freedman of Tiberius in inscriptions ("I put 'Thallos' in place of 'allos' by conjecture, as he is attested to have been among the freedmen of Tiberius, going by the inscriptions of Gruter," p. 810, translated from Hudson's Latin). But there is no good basis for this conjecture. First, the Greek actually does makes sense without the added letter (it means "another"), and all extant early translations confirm this reading, and second, an epitome of this passage does not give a name but instead the generic "someone" and this suggests that no name was mentioned in the epitomizer's copy. But finally, the most likely name, if one were needed here at all, would be HALLOS, requiring no added letters, since an imperial freedman by this name is also known in the time of Tiberius from inscriptions. For a full discussion of these facts and many other details, see Horace Rigg, "Thallus: The Samaritan?" Harvard Theological Review, vol. 34 (1941), pp. 111-9. Thus, Hudson's conjecture is groundless and is to be rejected. Although we still have an inscription recording a man named Thallus as an imperial freedman, this name we know is common, and appears often in inscriptions and the inscription in question says nothing about the man being a Samaritan, much less an author. Therefore, this attempt to place Thallus in the 1st century fails.

Further, of course, we once again have no mention of this event made by historians of the time. Such an impossible event as an eclipse occurring when the moon was opposite the sun, let alone the dead walking and so on would not fail to be recorded in the works of Seneca, Pliny, Josephus, Philo or other historians, yet it is not mentioned anywhere else outside of Christian rhetoric, so, again, we can dismiss the idea of this being a real event due to NO ONE other than the Christians telling us it occurred.

The Babylonian Talmud.

Jews had lived in Babylonia since the exile following the destruction of the First Temple.
The Babylonian Talmud is considered to have been a completed work by 500CE. Traditionally, it has been held that the Babylonian Talmud was edited by Rav ASHI and ravina. This has now been questioned and it is felt that the process of editing and arranging the material took place in a number of stages over a period of several generations. It may have been the work of anonymous editors living after the death of R. Ashi (425), who would have set the standards, and concluded the work about 500 CE. In this work is found the following:


On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu. And an announcer went out in front of him for forty days, saying: 'He is going to be stoned, because he practised sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. Anyone who knows anything in his favor, let him come and plead in his behalf.' But not having found anything in his favor, they hanged him on the eve of Passover.

Quite simply, this passage has nothing to do with Jesus or any of the stories surrounding the figure known as Jesus of Nazareth or Jesus Christ. Simply reading will tell you that this is a tale of A Yeshu or Jesus who was first STONED, not whipped and then HANGED, not crucified, for the crime of sorcery after a period of FORTY DAYS, as opposed to the almost overnight trial of Jesus of Nazareth. This particular passage is believed to have been written around 300CE, some two hundred years after the death of Jesus of Nazereth. Further, if you read on in the Babylonian Talmud, this Yeshu is said to have FIVE disciples: Mitai, Nicai, Nazere, Buni and Todah. None of these names, of course, match ANY of the disciples described in the Bible. Once again, the attempt by the apologist to link A Yeshu with Jesus of Nazareth.

Round five: The Gospels

[godshoulddie]

Round 5: The Gospels

Now we go on to the Gospels themselves. In regard to the Gospels, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, a Christian book, contains an article written by M.M. Parvis (vol. 4, 594-595), who states:
The New Testament is now known, in whole or in part, in nearly five thousand Greek manuscripts alone. Every one of these handwritten copies differ from the other one It has been estimated that these manuscripts and quotations differ among themselves between 150,000 and 250,000 times. The actual figure is, perhaps, much higher. A study of 150 Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the manuscripts' tradition is wholly uniform.

In reality, the four gospels selected for inclusion in the New Testament do not make any appearance in the literary and archaeological record until the last quarter of the 2nd century, between 170 and 180ce, and even then they are not much mentioned for a couple of decades. In this regard, Church father and archbishop of Constantinople John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) stated that the names traditionally attached to the canonical gospels were first designated at the end of the second century. The orthodox dating, of course, attempts to put the gospels a century earlier, between 70 and 110 ce. Mark was written before Matthew and Luke (c. 100 C.E.) but after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., which it mentions. The first historical mention of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, was made by the Christian Father, St. Irenaeus, about the year 190 A.D. The only earlier mention of any of the Gospels was made by Theopholis of Antioch, who mentioned the Gospel of John in 180 A.D.

The first three Gospels, known as the synoptic gospels, share much material. As a result of various scholarly hypotheses attempting to explain this interdependence, the traditional association of the texts with their authors has become the subject of criticism. Though some solutions retain the traditional authorship, other solutions reject some or all of these claims. The solution most commonly held in academia today is the two-source hypothesis, which posits that Mark and a hypothetical 2nd source, called the Q document, were used as sources for Matthew and Luke. Other solutions, such as the Augustinian hypothesis and Griesbach hypothesis, posit that Matthew was written first and that Mark was an epitome. Scholars who accept the two-source hypothesis generally date Mark to around 70, with Matthew and Luke dating to 80-90. Scholars who accept Matthean priority usually date the synoptic gospels to before 70, with some arguing as early as 40. John is most often dated to 90-100, though a date as early as the 60s, and as late as the second century have been argued by a few. (Wikipedia)

However, it should be kept in mind that the current mainstream dating was heretical when first propagated, over 150 years ago, causing apoplexy in the faithful, who believed the texts were composed shortly after Jesus's death. Over the centuries, because of increasingly scientific scholarship, the date of the canonical gospels has been continually pushed to later decades, as it has long been accepted that there is absolutely no evidence, internal or external, for such an early date.




There are, naturally, glaring textual errors:

Jesus is said to have been the descendant of David. Matthew gives a genealogy of 28 names from David to Joseph. Luke gives a reverse genealogy of 43 names from Joseph back to David. Mathews line goes from David to Davids’ son Solomon while Lukes goes from David to Davids son, Nathan. Each genealogy is interesting in the fact that while both try to link Jesus to King David through Joseph, Joseph, of course, WAS NOT the supposed father of Jesus.

If Jesus lived, he must have been born. When was he born? Matthew says he was born when Herod was King of Judea. Luke says he was born when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. He could not have been born during the administration of these two rulers for Herod died in the year 4 B.C., and Cyrenius, who, in Roman history is Quirinius, did not become Governor of Syria until ten years later. Herod and Quirinius are separated by the whole reign of Archelaus, Herod's son. After the banishment of Herod Archelaus in 6, Iudaea Province (the conglomeration of Samaria, Judea and Idumea) came under direct Roman administration. One of Quirinius' first duties was to carry out a census to assess the new province for tax purposes. At the same time Coponius was sent as prefect of Iudaea; but Quirinius went there also, as Legate of Syria, since the levying of the tax on the entire province was his special duty. The assessment was greatly resented by the Jews, and open revolt was prevented only by the efforts of the high priest Joazar. As it was, the census did trigger the revolt of Judas the Galilean and the formation of the party of the Zealots, according to Josephus. Judas of Galilee or Judas of Gamala led a violent resistance to a census imposed for Roman tax purposes by Quirinius (sometimes spelled "Cyrenius" in Josephus) in Iudaea Province around AD 6. The revolt was crushed brutally by the Romans. These events are discussed by Josephus in Jewish Wars (also known as The Wars of the Jews) , (Book 2, Chapter 8, Section 1 and Chapter 17, Section 8), and in Antiquities of the Jews Book 18. Between Matthew and Luke, there is, therefore, a contradiction of at least ten years, as to the time of Christ's birth. As a side note, I have also seen it stated that Quirinius had a previous administration of Syria and a PREVIOUS census/taxation that is consistent with the time of Herod the Great. The problem with this is that between 5 and 3 BCE, Quirinius led a campaign against the Homonadenses, a tribe based in the mountainous region of Galatia and Cilicia. From 3BCE to 3CE we know that Quirinius was present in campaigns in the Sahara, along with the historian Velleius Paterculus, Marcus Lollius, and Seianus, the future praetorian prefect (source: http://www.livius.org). All of these officers accompanied Gaius Caesar and were present with him when Gaius met the new Parthian king Phraataces on an island in the Euphrates and were his military advisers when Gaius conducted his campaign in Armenia in 2CE. This makes it impossible for Quirinius to have had ANY governership in the area during the reign of Herod the Great and, as I mention previous, this is supported by Josephus and the revolt against the census/taxation imposed by Quirinius in 6CE .



What happened immediately AFTER Jesus’ birth? Well, in Mathew we have the tale of the flight to Egypt after the birth of Jesus when Joseph is warned to flee because of Herods impending infanticide: Mathew 2:13 When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." 14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."
There they stayed until Herods’ death (4BC). They then come back during the reign of Herod Archelaus and go to Nazareth.
In Luke, however, we have Jesus being circumcised eight days after his birth and then the whole family going to Jerusalem after Mary was pure according to the laws of Moses (forty days). Luke 2:21On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.
22When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
NO mention by Luke of the flight to Egypt, living there until Herods’ death or any of the rest. Instead, the happy couple wait eight days in Bethlehem for Jesus to be circumcised and then wait FORTY MORE DAYS for Mary to be pure according to the laws of Moses and THEN go to JERUSALEM.

Where was Jesus born? According to the Gospels, he was habitually called "Jesus of Nazareth." The New Testament writers have endeavored to leave the impression that Nazareth of Galilee was his home town. The Synoptic Gospels represent that thirty years of his life were spent there. Notwithstanding this, Matthew declares that he was born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of a prophecy in the Book of Micah. But the prophecy of Micah has nothing whatever to do with Jesus; it prophesies the coming of a military leader, not a divine teacher. Luke has it that his birth occurred at Bethlehem, whither his mother had gone with her husband, to make the enrollment called for by Augustus Caesar. The Roman custom, when an enrollment was made, was that every man was to report at his place of residence, NOT his ancestral home. In addition, no other sources mention a world-wide (accurately, "the world under the authority of Roman”) census which would cover the population as a whole; those of Augustus, emperor of Rome at the time, covered Roman citizens only; and it was not the practice in Roman censuses to require people to return to their ancestral homes. The head of the family alone made report. In no case was his wife, or any dependent, required to be with him. In the face of this established custom, Luke declares that Joseph left his home in Nazareth and crossed two provinces to go Bethlehem for the enrollment; and not only this, but that he had to be accompanied by his wife, Mary, who was on the very eve of becoming a mother. The story that Christ was born at Bethlehem was a necessary part of the program which made him the Messiah, and the descendant of King David.

What happened after Jesus died? This is the part that should be the most consistent as it is the RESURRECTION that gives mankind redemption. Instead, we once again find glaring internal errors:
What time did the women visit the tomb? Mathew (28:1) As it began to dawn, Mark (16:2) very early in the morning…at the rising of the sun, Luke (24:1) very early in the morning, John (20:1) when it was yet dark
Who were the women who visited the tomb? Mathew (28:1) Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of Jesus, Mark (16:1) Mary Magdalene, Mary MOTHER OF JAMES and Salome, Luke (24:10) Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of Jesus and other unnamed women, John (20:1) Mary Magdalene
Who was at the tomb when they arrived? Mathew (28:2-3) One angel, Mark (16:5) one young man, Luke (24:4) two men, John (20:12) two angels
Did the women tell what they had seen? Mathew (28:8) Yes, Mark (16:8) No, Luke (24:9) Yes, John (20:18) Yes
After the women, to whom did Jesus appear? Mathew (28:16) Eleven disciples, Mark (16:12) Two disciples in the country, John (20:19) Ten disciples
Where did Jesus appear to those after the women? Mathew (28:16-17) On a mountain in Galilee, Mark (16:12) In the “country”, Luke (24:31) In Emmaus and then in a room in Jerusalem (24:36), John (20:19) a room in an unnamed location
Did Jesus stay on earth for more than a day? Mark (16:19) No, Luke (24:50-52) No, John (20:26 and 21:1-22) Yes, eight days, Acts (1:3) Yes, forty days
Where did the ascension take place? Mathew, NO ASCENSION, book of Mathew ends on the Mountain in Galilee, Mark (16:19) In Jerusalem, Luke (24:50-51) In Bethany, John, NO ASCENSION, Acts (1:9-12) from Mount of Olives
A.E. Harvey (New English Bible companion to the New Testament, Oxford University Press 1988) “All of the Gospels, after having run closely together in their accounts of the trial and execution, diverge markedly when they come to the circumstance of the Resurrection.”
Thomas Sheehan (The First Coming:How the Kingdom of God became Christianity, Random House, 1986) “Despite best efforts, the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ port mortem activities, in fact, cannot be harmonized into a consistent Easter chronology.”

Christ is supposed to have been a Jew, and his disciples are said to have been Jewish fishermen. His language, and the language of his followers must, therefore, have been Aramaic--the popular language of Palestine in that age. But the Gospels are written in Greek--every one of them. Nor were they translated from some other language. Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained that they were originally written in Greek. This proves that they were not written by Christ's disciples, or by any of the early Christians.

Foreign Gospels, written by unknown men, in a foreign tongue, several generations after the death of those who are supposed to have known the facts--such is the evidence relied upon to prove that Jesus lived from the Gospel perspective. Were a man of to-day attempt to write the life of a supposed character of a hundred and fifty years ago, without any historical documents upon which to base his narrative, his work would not be a history, it would be a romance. Not a single statement in it could be relied upon. Given that the gospels cannot be properly dated but that common acceptance of the dates of the writing has them written AT BEST decades after the death of Jesus, given that the gospels cannot be said to have even been actually WRITTEN by the purported authors with any degree of accuracy, given the textual, chronological and language inconsistencies it is impossible to use the gospels as any evidence of a historical Jesus.

[godshoulddie]

Conclusion:

Throughout this series of attacks on the historicity of Jesus I’m sure that it has been assumed that I am a Jesus mythicist. That is that I deny the existence of Jesus altogether. I do want to say here that I do not. Like Christopher Hitchens I believe that the ridiculous tales of Jesus and the myths surrounding him ARE evidence of a Jesus figure of some sort around whom these tales were then spun. I, like Hitchens, believe this person to have been a rabbi of the Essene movement. Why then do I question the evidence being presented for this persons’ historicity? Before answering that question, let me present two pieces of evidence that I did not refute in the previous passages.

Lucian, the Greek satirist, wrote this rather scathing attack in The Death of Peregrine circa AD 170:

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 upon 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.


This letter was sent by a Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion to his son Serapion. He compares the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras and Christ.

What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. Pythagoras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teaching which He had given.

For myself there is no better answer to why I would so strenuously object to the evidence presented for the historicity of Jesus than these two here. Lucian, a Greek SATIRIST making fun of what Christians believe and a letter mentioning a “wise king of the Jews”, which, of course, could have been any king. It could even be referring to Simon bar Kokhba, who led the third Jewish revolt and was, himself, proclaimed Messiah. Said revolt was then crushed by the Romans under Julius Severus and the diaspora is said to have truly begun at that time. Of course the apologist would say no, but, in reading the passage from Bar-Serapion, it could, if you are being truthful, refer to almost anything. Therein lies the central point to all of my arguments against any of these documents being presented. Over and over you find scholar after scholar showing that this or that document is a forgery or has Christian insertions or the document being presented is written centuries later and is actually only talking about what Christians believe to be true. Yet the apologist tries to present these documents as evidence when said documents would NOT be accepted regarding anyone else, even by the Christian. Imagine if all of these documents were being brought forth for the historicity of Mohammed. The references from Josephus, Tacitus and so on. The CHRISTIAN would laugh at these documents, point out all that I pointed out and dismiss them out of hand. It is only because the CHRISTIAN seeks to present evidence outside of his holy book that they are even considered by him. As I said, a COMEDIAN/SATIRIST and a mention of a “wise king” and THOSE are supposed to be given serious consideration? Documents which are acknowledged as being at least partial forgeries? Imagine tying to present such a document in a court of law:

“Yes, your honor, we do acknowledge that part of the document in question is a clear forgery…that is an insertion of words clearly designed to deceive the reader into believing that they were written by the author. However, you honor, even though I have no evidence to show that this OTHER part isn’t also part of the forgery, and, yes, there is evidence that it IS, I wish to present it as evidence because it’s language does match that of the authors. True, a good forger would make sure he used such language, but you must consider it because I have THESE group of scholars who say that it may, in some part, be the words of the author and not the forger.”

Can you imagine trying to make such an argument before a judge? Given just the evidence I presented here, showing there IS question of ANY sort of “partial” authenticity of Testimonium, the judge would dismiss it as evidence, and rightly so.
The same holds true for the “James” reference and the rest, including the gospels whose tales patently can’t even be reconciled to each other, let alone history itself.
Did a Jesus person exist? Surely. As I have shown there were dozens of Jesus persons mentioned in MANY documents, some of whom were ALSO thought to be messiah figures. But can ANY of the “miraculous” events presented in the bible be corroborated at all? Quite simply, no.

[jcr4runner]

Dear Godshoulddie,

I appreciate the time you've taken to put this together. It is a general summary of some of the arguments always used by Jesus mythists.

If you'll go back through the 127 posts on this topic so far, you''ll see that in my discussion with Ambomb, many angles on this hypothesis are covered already. Ambomb was actually the first Jesus mythist I encountered. At first, I was amazed that there was actually someone who insisted in dredging up an argument that only appeared in the late 1800s and has been settled in academic circles since the 1930s. For a while, he tried to post the Jesus myth hypothesis to almost every topic on our board. I eventually limited him to this one by transferring his posts to this forum. And he would respond by demanding that I "put them back where they belong!"

I soon got tired of dealing with this.

This was over two years ago. Since then I've discovered that the prevailing worldview of postmodernism is fertile round for the Jesus mythists and their ilk. I see it as a futile exercise to keep going over old ground. I do think though that an analysis of the postmodernist mindset in relation to the Jesus-as-myth fallacy is needed. It's a philosophy that has been critiqued many times before, but I think that the Jesus myth can be shown to be an out cropping of a cultural retreat into feeling, unreason and irrationality. I don't engage these people without first being engaged. It's usually so pointless. I usually just ask a few pointed questions to ferret out exactly what I am actually dealing with.

In your case, you at least admit that the Jesus as myth hypothesis is unreasonable in that it has no historic precedent or academic weight. That is the only reason why a rational discussion can take place here -- even though I disagree with most of what you say.

But still, I've spent a lot more time on this than I've wanted to. I plan to do a video project with J.P. Holding based on his recent book and let that stand as a final word of sorts.

While I appreciate the time you've spent on this, I will here criticize you for not posting much that is original. Most of everything here is culled from the usual Jesus mythist authors. One thing I could do here is to also cull the best and most accessible refutations of your borrowed ideas. Lee Strobel in The Case for the Real Jesus has a chapter on the Jesus-as-Myth hypothesis, which is a great short refutation. J.P. Holding published an exhaustive collection of essays by various authors countering all the claims made by the Jesus mythists. See Shattering the Jesus Myth. Every one of your objections is covered in these two works.

While I could engage you point for point with my own knowledge, you will see I've already written about 50 responses to Ambomb that would make a small book if collated.

I won't defend the passages by Pliny and Tacitus except to say that only "crackpot" Jesus myth proponents will claim these are forgeries. No scholar considered to be an expert in the field has ever held them suspect. You may hold them to be forgeries by your own reasoning, but until you have a Ph.D. in history or literary criticism and are either a published researcher, teacher or professor, I can't take you seriously. You are not an expert and the experts don't agree with you.

Then all the later pagan testimonies are derivative of earlier ones, so it's pointless to argue these.

My argument simply goes like this:

Only five historians of the late first to early second century wrote anything on first century Roman history.

1. Livy
2. Plutarch
3. Tacitus
4. Suetonius
5. Josephus.

All other histories of first century Rome and Palestine are derivative of these five men's work. Out of the five, Livy died before Jesus became a known figure; Plutarch wrote only about politicians and statesmen; then the other three have a small but significant record of the early Christians and a person named Jesus.

Since so much of ancient writing was lost including other works by these Roman historians, it's remarkable that we have anything from any of the possible candidates on Jesus -- let alone all three -- and a letter from Pliny the Younger thrown in for good measure!

Even the Suetonius passage at worst corroborates not the person of Jesus, but at very least the event described in Acts 18:2. Yet even here, Feldman agrees that Suetonus probably means Jesus Christ:

There has been a tremendous amount of discussion as to who Chrestus is in the passage below. Most scholars assume that Jesus is meant and that the reference is to the disturbances created by the spread of Christianity in Rome (Feldman, Jewish Life and Thought, p. 332).

Yes, it's that annoying Most scholars assume ... argument again!

Feldman goes on to cite Acts and Dio Cassius to give the big picture of what happened here. In short, the Romans would have seen the proselytizing of its citizens by Christians and the resulting tensions between the Jews and the Christian evangelists (such as Priscilla and Aquila, who were also Jews) as a source of unrest and would not have made a distinction between the two factions.

Feldman even cites support (p. 346) of the persecution of Christians under Domitian in 96 AD, in which a Flavius Clemens (thought to be Clement of Rome) and his wife, Domitilla, a relative of Caesar's family, were executed. But here I digress.

My point is that we have a wealth of information of what happened in the first century church from a wide variety of sources. It's also remarkable that everything that is written by pagans only corroborates the New Testament account and writings of the first century church fathers, such as, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp and Papias. Even with many major historical figures, such as Alexander the Great, we have to rely on conflicting testimonies that rarely corroborates each other. In fact, the four biographies of Alexander that form everything we know about him were written hundreds of years later and each recounts a figure much different from the others. What is remarkable about the first century Jesus material is how much of it is so close to the source and how much of it agrees in the smallest details.

Your last post repeats some of the usual so-called "contradictions in the Gospels" claims, I've written on some of these. I am especially interested in the Quirinius question. Remarkably, there is good evidence for a worldwide census in 5 BC given by Herod in Judea and finished after Varus left for Rome in 4 BC. Oddly, this is ignored by cynics and skeptics even though there is a preponderance of records.

I would rather point you to articles I and others already written rather than repost old material here. I apologize for this curt dismissal, but as I said earlier, I get the same questions over and over from many different people. It's more useful to point to articles within this website -- and other places -- than to constantly have to reinvent the wheel.

One point I will address here (and in a future post) is your quote-mining of Feldman. In a few days, I hope to get you the actual pages from Feldman's book, Josephus and Modern Scholarship. The book is out of print and can only be bought on-line only for prices ranging above $500. Consequently, cynics like to quote-mine to book to make Feldman say either that the entire TF is a forgery -- or that he doubts it's authenticity. Nothing could be further from the truth. This can only be held by those who will redefine the scholarly definition of what is meant by an interpolation, as you do here, or who quote Feldman only in the places where he is discussing contrary evidence, but ignore his own conclusions, which is deceptive.

I am assuming that as a rational person if you were to read Feldman's conclusions in his own words, you'd concede not the authenticity of the TF, but that you are wrong on Feldman's view.

Dr. Feldman's final conclusion in both cases is that the core passage of the longer TF is authentic and that the authenticity of the shorter TF James passage in Josephus "has been almost universally acknowledged." (Louis H. Feldman, "Josephus" Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pp. 990-1.)

What is also interesting is that Feldman himself points out that a reconstructed passage, with about three brackets of added material, actually leads more credence to the passage. He shows perhaps why some church fathers might have wanted to ignore it; why the material was added in the first place; and it explains why Origen thought that in another passage about Jesus, Josephus claimed he did not believe Jesus was the Christ.

I'll write another post just dealing with this question as soon as we get access to the book.

While having access to a library copy of the book, J.P Holding read the entire 1055 pages. Since I am currently working with James on a video concerning the Jesus myth, I will work on establishing Feldman's summary of his position once and for all. Unfortunately, since so few people quoting the book have access to a copy, they rely on secondary quotes in other sources. I will work on getting the primary source material and I will post it here.

I am not ending the conversation here. This is just all I had time for today. I also have a lot to say about the reliability and the authenticity of the NT accounts. I have yet to develop this fully and am not opposed to doing it in a debate forum. Some of my best writing and video projects have been developed that way. (Check out the two other topics in this forum related to these ideas.)

Also: if you feel that there is anything there that is truly original, that was not derived from other works, and hasn't even been discussed ad infinitum elsewhere, please point it out and I will try to answer it.

[godshoulddie]

Well, I can’t say I’m shocked. Disappointed but not shocked.

So, let’s deal with what is the entirety of your argument.

Argument from authority or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is commonly regarded as authoritative. The most general structure of this argument is:
Source A says that p.
Source A is authoritative.
Therefore, p is true.
On the other hand, arguments from authority are an important part of informal logic. Since we cannot have expert knowledge of many subjects, we often rely on the judgments of those who do. There is no fallacy involved in simply arguing that the assertion made by an authority is true, the fallacy only arises when it is claimed or implied that the authority is infallible in principle and can hence be exempted from criticism.

It is true that NEITHER you nor I have a PHD in philosophy, theology, logic or so on so BOTH of us must, therefore, make reference to outside authorities when making argument. The fallacy comes when one person attempts to say that ONLY his authority is acceptable as an authority in a given field and is therefore “infallible in principle” as the fallacy states.

Regarding Tacitus. NO scholar has ever rejected it as a forgery? NOT ONE? Authors such as James Still who states:
Tacitus was an imperial writer, and no imperial document would ever refer to Jesus as "Christ." Also, Pilate was not a "procurator" but a prefect, which Tacitus would have known.
WJ Ross who in his work Tacitus and Bracciolini makes the argument that the entire Annals themselves were forged in the fifteenth century? NOT ONE scholar has EVER questioned the authenticity of the Tacitean passage regarding Nero. I further showed, with references the following:
The varying historical accounts of the event come from three secondary sources — Cassius Dio, Suetonius and Tacitus. The primary accounts, which possibly included histories written by Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder, did not survive. These primary accounts are described as contradictory and gross exaggerations. At least five separate stories circulated regarding Nero and fire:
Motivated by a desire to destroy the city, Nero secretly sent out men pretending to be drunk to set fire to the city. Nero watched from his palace on the Palatine Hill singing and playing the lyre.
Motivated by an insane whim, Nero quite openly sent out men to set fire to the city. Nero watched from the Tower of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill singing and playing the lyre.
Nero sent out men to set fire to the city. Nero sang and played his lyre from a private stage.
The fire was an accident. Nero was in Antium.
The fire was caused by Christians.
It is, however, to be noted that one of the near contemporary sources, Suetonius (who was born shortly after the fire and may have seen the reconstruction during his childhood) specifically excludes any persecution, quite apart from anything on the scale suggested by Tacitus, and went so far as to say that Nero never tried to trace the perpetrators and gave instructions that the members of the only list presented to the Senate were to be let off lightly. But NO SCHOLAR has EVER questioned this passage? See the authority fallacy.

Then you refer back to Feldman again regarding Suetonius to try to tell me that “it is universally accepted”. See the authority fallacy again. I guess, though, it really was too simple to point out that Claudius reigned from 41-54 CE and Jesus supposed death occurred around 30 CE and that NO text, not even your holy book, places Jesus in Rome EVER. No, instead, Feldman proclaims it “universally accepted”, so it must be so. See authority fallacy.

Then back to the TF and James references. Once again I show at least half a dozen scholars who disagree with the TF, even the entire dissertation regarding the language of the passage. But, sorry, Feldman says…see authority fallacy. I show that the ENTIRE Catholic Church rejects James as Jesus brother, but, Feldman says…see authority fallacy.

Having taken your and Holdings measure on you tube and other forums I wasn’t really expecting much, but this really made me laugh. Feel free to respond, I won’t be coming back.

Toodles.

[jcr4runner]

Regarding Tacitus. No scholar has ever rejected it as a forgery? NOT ONE? Authors such as James Still who states: Tacitus was an imperial writer, and no imperial document would ever refer to Jesus as "Christ." Also, Pilate was not a "procurator" but a prefect, which Tacitus would have known. WJ Ross who in his work Tacitus and Bracciolini makes the argument that the entire Annals themselves were forged in the fifteenth century? NOT ONE scholar has EVER questioned the authenticity of the Tacitean passage regarding Nero. Then you refer back to Feldman again regarding Suetonius to try to tell me that “it is universally accepted”. See the authority fallacy again.

This is typical postmodernist hogwash. A few rules of logic ought to be laid down here.

The authority fallacy deals with whenever the truth or falsity of the claim is not related to the expertise of the claimant. For example:

"You should never spank a child because it can lead to self-esteem problems later in life," as quoted in "Child Rearing" by Britney Spears.

"The Hubble SpaceTelescope has told us more about the universe in just 20 years than we have learned from land telesopes in the past 200 years," says a prominent NASA scientist.

Both are appeals to authority, but only the second one is valid. Likewise, Dr. Feldman, being the world's leading authority on Josephus, is qualified to tell us exactly how many Josephus scholars view the Jesus material as having core authenticity. Feldman correctly tells us that a robust 75 percent view it as partially authentic, mostly authentic or totally authentic. For a time, you were claiming this was not Feldman's view, but now you cut and run (you are the Anti-Schwarzenegger: "I WON'T be back!") Citing Feldman's view is admitting defeat on this point.

Instead your new tactic is redefine what is meant by "appeal to authority fallacy" and "scholar" and then abandon the discussion saying you are "disappointed." This is, in fact, a usual tactic of postmodernists when confronted with facts buttressed by citations of authoritative scholarship.

And that brings me to my second point. A "scholar" is a person who has achieved a level of academic expertise in the form of a doctorate and has shown his work through research, publishing, or teaching his subject area at a reputable university or college. For an "expert" to be qualified to comment, he must show scholarship in his area of commentary. For instance, a German language scholar is not necessarily qualified to comment on first century Roman history. However, a New Testament scholar who has done work in history, culture and archaeology might be.

One area where I misspoke of is the phrase "No scholar who is (presnt tense) has ever claimed (past participle)" -- this gives the impression that I am speaking of the past tense. Of course, I meant presently. I agree that the late 19th and 20th century was an era of the "New Criticism" of literature in which all sorts of speculations not bound by the study of historical background were proposed. This was the only time in history when the Jesus-as-myth hypothesis was examined by scholars. But the telling point is that it was universally rejected and is held by only two or possibly three scholars in the whole world today.

So I must retract "has ever" and restate my claim: No scholar claims that Tacitus' references to Christ and Christianity is forged. A scholar is one with expertise in a subject or field whose works are recognized by contemporary peers as having credible weight.

You cite James Still and WJ Ross. Let's examine their credentials.

James Still is the president emeritus of Internet Infidels.

Response: Still's qualifications to comment on anything are nowhere to be found. True, he is a "writer," meaning he can string together reasonably coherent prose on blogs. He's not a scholar and hasn't published anything of note. His qualifications in his own words:

I am a software developer and architect for Multnomah County, Oregon. In my spare time I blog for the Secular Web, maintain the kiosk and bookstore for infidels.org, practice yoga, and get out on my road bike at every opportunity.

So he is not a Tacitus scholar. Enough said on this. However, if I want to know something about architectural software or road bikes, this is the go-to-guy.

WJ Ross, a Latin scholar, claimed in 1878 that since entire work of Tacitus known as Annals was unknown until the 15th century when it was discovered by Poggio Bracciolini, that Bracciolini himself must have forged the Annals in its entirety. Ross noted that (he thought) some of Bracciolini's phrases were similar in style to Tacitus. This is known as form criticism.

Response: First, this work is over 130 years old. Scholars who specialize in Roman history today do not acknowledge Ross' thesis. There are a number of reasons why this thesis is false at face value. Tacitus gives us information about first century Rome that cannot be found elsewhere. Since modern archaeology has validated many of Tacitus' records, and since these are findings that a 15th century Italian could not have known, modern scholars universally accept Tacitus as a credible and valuable source of history. Second, scholars use expressions like “feeble attempts” and “pure speculation” to describe such writings that have no contemporary validity. There were many Latin and Greek works that were rediscovered at the time of the Italian Renassaince. There is no evidence that this particular work was forged in part or entirely.

Of course, there are many "writers" today who question the authenticity of Tacitus' references to Nero's scapegoats, the Christians. However, it's telling that none of them are scholars. Among scholars who are qualified to offer their expert opinion, there are none alive today who question this passage.

[sunan]

In recent decades, Americans and Canadians often seen in the media on the activities of many denominations and sects. People's Temple mass suicide in Guyana events, Texas Branch Davidians the fire incident, the members of Heaven's Gate, California self-destruction events, and Quebec, without exception, the collapse of the Sun Temple is a heavy blow to the North American people, can see many of the United States and Canada abnormal and dangerous people have been caught in the religious movement.

Christians have been particularly aware of this increasingly serious situation. However, most people can not understand the sectarian organizations, or sects in the end is what constitutes, or they do not identify a religious movement or a church how to do the real Christian behavior.
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