Re: 2 questions for creationists

Mujin wrote:

I recognise that you are merely repeating material culled from the
'net. Much of it is obscurantist and ignorant; but I must refer to it
somehow! When I write 'your argument', therefore, please do not take
this personally!

In article <s0Y%f.4989$fo1.261866@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
try_not@xxxxxxxx says...
A "person" of questionable historical reality.

There is as much if not more on Jesus as Julius Ceasar.

This is misstated. The normal form of this comments is that there is
more evidence for Jesus than for Julius Caesar invading Britain.

No, there isn't. There is a wealth of material written by
contemporaries of Julius Caesar...

Indeed. Such major figures are well documented in our sources. But a
better comparison is with other figures from the Roman margins.

So why are the only records of his activities recorded in five
documents written decades after his death?

What else would you expect? And when did Ovid write about Caesar?

All religions make incredible claims.

Well, yours may! Mine doesn't.

not the case. In fact there are a huge number of options, including
numerous variant interpretations of the Christian scriptures, which
might fit your perception of the world better than either your current
flavour of Christianity or atheism. Why do you dismiss them all out
of hand?

The same question might equally be asked of you. After all, the same
applies to every value-idea system that anyone holds.

But the usual atheist response to this rather obvious point is to hide,
fudge, claim "I have no religion so the set of values and ideas by
which I live, which I don't state and can't discuss, need not be
subjected to examination." Which sort of gives the game away.

Thus the argument above is a standard atheist ploy in debate (I have no
idea if you are one) and relies on a deception, by keeping the actual
value-idea set that the atheist proselytises for -- conformity to
something from the menu of societal values of the era in which he
happens to live -- off the table.

None have leaders who rose from the dead with 500 eyewitnesses.

Irrelevant.

Finding excuses to ignore evidence is also a characteristic of
obscurantist. I myself do not think much of people who do that.
Evidence is evidence.

Jesus predicted his own death...and resurrection.

No.

Yes.

No. You have a book that claims it, but since all of the NT was
written at best 40 decades after the events. What proportion of what
was written was fabricated to support a persecuted mystery cult?

Again, we see evidence being disregarded on frivolous grounds. Ovid
wrote 40 years after Caesar's death, yet your sources were happy to
call him 'contemporary.' Which is it?

This whole type of argument will not do. Obscurantism about well-known
events is not a respectable form of argument. Here are a few
quotations, as if anyone needed them:

Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any material
respect, the possible presence of hostile witnesses in the audience
would have served as a further corrective.
~ F. F. Bruce, Rylands professor of biblical criticism and exegesis at
the University of Manchester, on the value of the New Testament records

as primary sources

If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their
authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.
~ibid

I claim to be an historian. My approach to Classics is historical. And
I
tell you that the evidence for the life, the death, and the
resurrection
of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient
history . . .
~E. M. Blaiklock Professor of Classics Auckland University

For the New Testament of Acts, the confirmation of historicity is
overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its basic historicity, even in
matters of detail, must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long
taken it for granted.
~A. N. Sherwin-White Classical Roman Historian

Skepticism regarding the historical credentials of Christianity is
based
upon an irrational bias.
~Clark Pinnock, McMaster University

And indeed we all know that every ideological movement is founded by a
chap with a beard on a soapbox saying "follow me." No evidence
whatever for any other origin of Christianity exists.

There is no credible extrabiblical evidence of Jesus.

The word 'credible' leads immediately to the question, "in whose
opinion"? Scholars, at least, do not agree as we saw.

Tacitus refers to him, Suetonius may do, Josephus does. The four main
sources for all that period of history are these three plus Cassius
Dio. Surely fabricating excuses to ignore sources is not a sensible
way to do history?

As I have shown above, there is an abundance of documentary and
archaeological evidence which proves the existance of Julius Caesar.

But you expect us to accept all of it, without discussion, while
finding reasons to ignore similar literary evidence (not of the same
kind) for Jesus!

and in government documents. In contrast, Jesus's very existance is
recorded only in the NT, by people who had a partisan reason to
establish his reality. He is not mentioned credibly elsewhere AFAIK.

Are you suggesting that the existence of Caesar was not a matter of
importance to those who followed him? That no-one might have had a
motive to falsify it? Read Cicero again, and see him complain about
people forging Caesar's memoranda to justify their actions, within days
of the funeral.

This argument works both ways. If I were so foolish, I could probably
'prove' using the methods above that Caesar never lived and that all
the 'evidence' was fabricated by Augustus. That this is so shows the
worthlessness of the sort of arguments deployed against the existence
of Jesus. Indeed the argument was only invented ca. 1700 for obvious
polemical purposes by Christian-haters. No-one in antiquity questioned
his existence; on the contrary, Christians were jeered at for following
so disreputable a figure, and heretics tried to rewrite the story to
avoid the more laughable details.

Incidentally you didn't explain here why you would repeat an argument
held only as far as I know by cranks and bigots -- would you do so?

(Various standard excuse-type arguments snipped)

Why not think for yourself for a moment? We've all heard these before.
Why do you believe them?

A summary of the argument
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/josephus-etal.html

Basically, here is the point:
Josephus wrote two major texts, History of The Jewish War and The
Antiquities of the Jews. In these, he lists every important person and
every important event. The passage Christians claim as evidence for
Jesus is a single paragraph in which all the major claims are
"supported". However, until the 4th century no Church writer makes
any reference to this passage - why not?

Until the 4th century, only two writers even know of any of books
11-20. There is a silent ignorant presupposition in this argument
(remarked on by educated atheist writer F.C.Conybeare in reviewing
damningly one of these books a century ago) that the literature that we
have is all that ever existed.

Throughout the first 4 centuries of Christianity, in all their arguments
and preaching why was this ironclad evidence not used?

Evidence of what? That Jesus existed? But who denied this? It was
alleged that he practised sorcery (a capital crime). Josephus sort of
provides evidence to support that allegation.

How do early Christian writers use Josephus? The answer is 'not much.'
When they do, they always use him to defend Jews against Pagan
calumnies.

Origen himself, the noted apologist who debated Celsus for half his life,

Origen did not 'debate Celsus', and certainly not for half his life (a
very odd idea -- where is this from?). He was handed an obscure
pamphlet that no-one had ever heard of, and at the request of his
friend went through it line by line taking it apart. Among other
things he quotes the other passage of Josephus about Jesus.

didn't even use it. Why not?

Because Celsus didn't refer to it?

Isn't it the perfect proof?

Of what? That Jesus existed? Celsus never denied that.

He even referred to Josephus in his essay Contra Celsum!

And to Josephus mentioning Jesus.

The obvious answer is that the paragraph
didn't even exist in the original copies of Josephus's work.

Scholars, however, think that this argument is rubbish. See Carleton
Paget's review of scholarship on the TF in the JTS vol. 52.

Certainly, if he had been convinced enough of Jesus's veracity to
write about him at all, he would have put down more than a paragraph
as an aside in his discussion of the life of Pilate.

Why? Arguments from the demands of Christophobes 2000 years later are
not evidence, surely?

Josephus's "proof" is clearly a later fabrication, probably by
Eusebius around AD 340.

No scholar believes that Eusebius wrote this apart from Ken Olson, and
E. was dead by 340.

Looking a bit closer, how about the words of a Christian?

'I have read the chronology of Justus of Tiberias ... and being under
the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth,
he makes not one mention of Jesus, of what happened to him, or of the
wonderful works that he did.'
Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 9th Century

Interesting that Justus, a Jewish historian like Josephus living and
writing at the same time, makes no mention of this amazing Jesus. Why
is that do you think?

Curious that this page chooses this edited version of what is, after
all, a very short codex. Here's the real passage, which sort of
answers that question several times over:

XXIII. Read the Chronicle of Justus of Tiberias, entitled A Chronicle
of the Kings of the Jews in the form of a genealogy, by Justus of
Tiberias. He came from Tiberias in Galilee, from which he took his
name. He begins his history with Moses and carries it down to the
death of the seventh Agrippa of the family of Herod and the last of the
Kings of the Jews. His kingdom, which was bestowed upon him by
Claudius, was extended by Nero, and still more by Vespasian. He died
in the third year of Trajan, when the history ends. Justus' style is
very concise and he omits a great deal that is of utmost importance.
Suffering from the common fault of the Jews, to which race he belonged,
he does not even mention the coming of Christ, the events of his life,
or the miracles performed by Him. His father was a Jew named Pistus;
Justus himself, according to Josephus, was one of the most abandoned of
men, a slave to vice and greed. He was a political opponent of
Josephus, against whom he is said to have concocted several plots; but
Josephus, although on several occasions he had his enemy in his power,
only chastised him with words and let him go free. It is said that
the history which he wrote is in great part fictitious, especially
where he describes the Judaeo-Roman war and the capture of Jerusalem.

WRT Tacitus, the following passage is usually attributed to Tacitus in
Annals book 15 chapter 44:

The problem is that the word Christian wasn't in use at the time of
Tacitus, so how could he use it?

Says who? Look at Pliny.

At the time, Christians were seen by the Romans as being merely
another sect of Jews.

On what ancient evidence is this based? It may be true in 60 AD;
Tacitus records when it ceased to be true. By the days of Tacitus,
Christianity was illegal while Judaism was legal.

Again, this passage is almost certainly a fabrication.

No classical scholar whatsoever would agree, tho.

Although it would certainly be considered evidence if it were real,
no Christian apologist quoted this passage for centuries.

Evidence of what? Why should they quote it?

It appears to have appeared in this form
(though it latin obviously) in the writings of a fabulist of
the 5th century Sulpicius Severus mixed in with other myths

Oh dear. So the author of this lot doesn't even know that Tacitus
wrote in Latin, and has never read Sulpicius Severus. Yet he feels
able to make all of these assertions about what is, and is not, a
genuine text. We're dealing with someone utterly ignorant, and
arrogantly asserting what HE HIMSELF knows that he doesn't know. Is
this honest?

Let's summarize what we've learned about Jesus from this examination of
ancient non-Christian sources. First, both Josephus and Lucian indicate that
Jesus was regarded as wise.

Josephus is clearly a fraud

This argument against Josephus is plainly a fraud, when we find that
all the arguments consist of reasons for ignoring evidence. This alone
shows the whole argument to be bogus, surely?

The way we do history is to tabulate the data and see what it says.
The way we debunk something is to go through the data and find reasons
to ignore it. But debunking is just polemic, not history.

Second, Pliny,

Pliny says:

'Christians ... 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. '
(Pliny to Trajan, Letters 10.96-97)

This is just a description of the beliefs of Christians in his time,
around 150 IIRC. This in no way indicates what might be true or not
about belief in Jesus, nor does it specifically mention Jesus.

It is difficult not to feel utter contempt for this comment. Why is
this statement (from before 115 AD) not evidence? As for not
mentioning Jesus... is there a single Latin document that uses the word
'Christ' to mean anyone else? 'Christ' with followers called
'Christians'? Tertullian, ca. 200, quotes this letter and Trajan's
edict. Does he not know either?

I hope you see how this small selection of ancient non-Christian sources
helps corroborate our knowledge of Jesus from the gospels.

Unfortunately it doesn't.

In which case, of course, nothing would.

Do we not have here a form of argument that simply lifts the bar of
evidence higher, each time evidence is produced, grins and says "prove
it to me"? That method of proceeding alone rules the argument out.
What village idiot could not do this?!

Where is the stone door? Where can I see it and examine it for
myself?

Likewise, when Vergil writes of his shepherds, can we produce their
bones and some evidence of how they earned a living?

We can all play this sort of game, if we are foolish enough. This is
why we treat this form of argument as a sign of dishonesty. Your
source is damaging your ability to distinguish right from wrong.

Now onto a general point:

On the basis of the type of argument deployed above, then, we have to
conclude that *you* really do have a strong personal need not to deal
with the claims of Christianity. That is not my business of course; or
would not be, were it not that you appear online with anti-historical
arguments which damage the understanding of others as to how we do
history.

In the circumstances, I think you need to disclose the true grounds of
your comments before any serious discussion can take place. You have
no idea whether Jesus lived or not; you merely find it convenient to
repeat some very ignorant assertions that he did not. You need to
explain this, surely? Discussion can only take place when people are
arguing their true positions. Repeating obscurantist excuses isn't
really worth your time. No sensible person believes this tosh.

(A certain sort of atheist just brushes these obvious remarks aside and
goes for impudent reiteration. I have some well-chosen words which I
use in those circumstances!)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

.

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