Mythology with real places & people

I have. Extensively. No historian of the time mentions jesus at all.

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

First of all, you're wrong. I have looked at the historical writings. The problem is that the "Best" writings - (joshepus for example) are outright frauds.When your side of the debate resorts to lying to try and convince people of something, it makes us suspicious that EVERYTHING on your side is equally dishonest.I also can't help but notice that you COMPLETELY skipped my post about the similarities between Horus and Jesus. Why is that?When you ignore a line of argument because you can't refute it - that's dishonest. It's the sort of behavior that makes us suspicious that EVERYTHING you say is dishonest.See how this works. You establish that you don't have integrity, then you wonder why we don't take you seriously.Could there have been a guy in the Middle East 2000 years ago who had the first name Jesus? Sure. Maybe he was even a carpenter.He was not, however, a miracle worker. Those stories (like MOST of the rest of the Bible) were simply pilftered from other, earlier religions.

Really???how about the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James & Jude??? Paul was a Jewish Pharisee who opposed the christians. He lead a campaign that saw the jailing of many Christians and he oversaw the stoning of the disciple Stephen. So rather then an acquaintance, Paul was in fact and enemy of the early church.
After he converted he wrote a letter to the Galatian christians to explain himself because the congregations were in fear of him.

quote:

---

Gal1:13 "YOU, of course, heard about my conduct formerly in Ju′daism, that to the point of excess I kept on persecuting the congregation of God and devastating it, 14and I was making greater progress in Ju′daism than many of my own age in my race...15But when God, ... thought good 16to reveal his Son in connection with me, that I might declare the good news about him to the nations, I did not go at once into conference with flesh and blood. 17Neither did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles previous to me, but I went off into Arabia, and I came back again to Damascus.
18Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to visit Ce′phas, and I stayed with him for fifteen days.

---

The accounts about Jesus and his miracles did not need to be written by Paul. The congregations were already well established by the time Paul became a christian so why would you expect him to start preaching about Jesus miracles??? The christians already were convinced of that because many of them were eyewitnesses. Paul was not an eyewitness of Jesus and his miracles though.The purpose of Pauls writings were to show that the Mosaic Law ( a law he was a scholar in ) was no longer applicable for christians. If you read his writings you will see that he confirms over and over that Jesus Christ is the promised 'Seed' of God and that salvation was through faith in him.Perhaps you should read his works yourself...opinions of critics are just opinions.

Not historians, not contemporary to jesus and we have no ides who the authors were or if there were multiple authors. But we can be assured they were not written b an actual apostles.The rest of your post is just poor apologetics. You still have never shown any extra-biblical contemporary evidence for the existence of jesus christ.

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Josephus made two references to Jesus. One where he is referred to as the Messiah is said to be forged but the other is widely accepted.

quote:

---

"[Ananus the high priest] convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ" Jewish Antiquities,XX, 200

---

Tacitus mentioned the Christians in his Annals in the account about Nero blaming the great fire of Rome in 64ce on the christians.

quote:

---

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.

---

Please dont tell me that there was no secular mention of Jesus Christ.

even if thats correct (and i dont believe you in the slightest) what has it to do with the historicity of Jesus Christ?

Both are highly suspect. The Testimonium Flavianum cannot be taken as legitimate. There are too many inconsistencies. Also, it is not a contemporary account.Tacitus was also not contemporary.This has been all hashed over here.This post from 2005 sums it up.

quote:

---

TACITUS (c.112CE)

​

Roughly 80 years after the alleged events Tacitus allegedly wrote a (now) famous passage about "Christ" - this passage has several problems however:
* Tacitus uses the term "procurator", used in his later times, but not correct for the actual period, when "prefect" was used.
* Tacitus names the person as "Christ", when Roman records could not possibly have used this name (it would have been "Jesus, son of Joseph" or similar.)
* Tacitus accepts the recent advent of Christianity, which was against Roman practice (to only allow ancient and accepted cults and religions.)
* (No-one refers to this passage for a millenium, even early Christians who actively sought such passages.)

​

Thus, even if the Tacitus passage is not a later interpolation,
it is not evidence of a historical Jesus based on earlier Roman records,
but
merely a few details which Tacitus gathered from Christian stories circulating in his time (c.f. Pliny.)

---

quote:

---

JOSEPHUS (c.96CE)

​

The famous Testamonium Flavianum is considered probably the best evidence for Jesus, yet it has some serious problems :
* the T.F. as it stands uses clearly Christian phrases and names Christ as Messiah, it could not possibly have been written by the Jew Josephus (who refused to acknowledge anyone "messiah"),
* The T.F. comes in several versions of various ages,
* The T.F. was not mentioned by Origen when he reviewed Josephus - Origen even says Josephus does NOT call Jesus the Messiah, showing the passage was not present in that earlier era.
* The T.F. first showed up in manuscripts of Eusebius, and was still absent from some manuscripts as late as 8th century.
* (The other tiny passage in Josephus is probably a later interpolation.)

​

In short - this passage is possibly a total forgery (or at best a corrupt form of a lost original.)

​

But,
its COULD be actual evidence for Jesus. late, corrupt, but just POSSIBLY real historical evidence.

​

Such is the weakness of the evidence that this suspect passage is considered some of the best "evidence" for a historical Jesus of Nazareth.

---

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Neither Josephus nor Tacitus were contemporaries (i.e. lived at the same time) of Jesus of Nazareth. They both very briefly mentioned via third hand knowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the supposed initiator of the Christian religious cult. Josephus was born circa 37 AD/CE some 7 years after Jesus of Nazerath's supposed crucifixion and Tacitus was born circa 56 AD/CE (over 26 years after Jesus crucifixion). Both could have witnessed the history of the early Church but not the actual life of Jesus Christ.IMHO, my educated guess would be that Jesus of Nazareth may have actually existed but that the early Church leaders, scribes, etc expounded, embellished, contrived and rewrote many of the events of his life. Of course I cannot prove this without a doubt in the same way that Christian apologists cannot prove that all the events in the Bible actually occurred verbatim as written in the Bible.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

---

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Show evidence they were written by actual apostles. You do realize that most christian theologins don't believe they were also.The reason they have something to do with the historicity is that the only evidence you have, the only, cannot be given a provenance. No one knows when they were written. They can be fairly accurately dayed post 70 CE, but not much better than that. They are also not contemporary to the time period your jesus was supposed to have existed.

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Professor Louis H. Feldman of Yeshiva University says that very few scholars have doubted the genuineness of Josephus's 2nd reference to Jesus. The 2nd ref calls him the 'christ' as opposed to messiah.The fact that Tacitus wrote about the founder of the christians by the name Christus and then proceeded to confirm how he suffered the extreme pentalty by Pontius Pilate, proves that the historical Jesus was accepted as a real person.Now if myths and legends take a long time to develop before they become accepted, how is it that after only 100 years Jesus could have been so widely accepted???please explain it because i would love to hear the explanation for it.

so what...i am trying to show that Jesus was a real personthe fact that both these historians mention jesus proves that they did not consider Jesus to be a myth or legend or a make believe character invented by the christians.

Who says this?Have you heard of Paul Bunyan, Casey at the Bat, Rosie the Riveter?All legendary characters.Your argument is no argument. ANd certainly no proof. I disagree with the good professor. It is highly doubted outside apologist circles.Please provide link to his statement addressing this issue. I would like to read it.

---

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

The Gospel of Mark wasn't written until AT LEAST 70 years after the alledged time of Jesus. It specifically references the destruction of the Temple which is an event for which we have historical data.The other Gospels derive from Mark.So, between the supposed cruxifiction and Mark - the only one writing about Jesus was Paul.And as I mentioned (and you again completely failed to address) Paul fails to mention any of the important facts we would expect to hear if they had really happened. No miracles, no cruxifiction, no virgin birth - nada.It's as though in ONE generation, EVERYONE had completely forgotten EVERYTHING that Jesus had done, only to SUDDENLY remember it all 70 years later. And in that and other letters he refers to Jesus not the way you talk about a historical figure, but the way your talk about a mythical spiritual being.Again. NO references to any of the supposed events which would have JUST taken place. Some miracles - no one remembered them? This is simply false. Check your timeline.Further, if you were writing a letter to the Abraham Lincoln fanclub in 1890, you would mention the Civil War OR the Assassination OR the Gettysburg Address OR the Presidency, if not ALL of those things.Paul fails to even reference that Jesus apparently died only a few years earlier on the cross?Must have slipped his mind. Which is what you say about ANY solar deity whom you assume never has corporial form.Paul is not talking about a man.

Whether Jesus was real or not has no bearing on this topic. Whether he existed or not does not make the Biblical stories real. That is the point of this topic "Mythology with real places & people." One would think that if Jesus raised Lasurus from the dead that there would be some written evidence to this, raising one from the dead doesn't happen every day and would be extremely newsworthy even 2000 years ago. But, other than the Bible, there is no contemporary writings of such.

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

No it doesn't.#1 Tacitus only mentions the cult of Christianity and its supposed origination from second hand sources. To say his mention of a "Christ" (notice he never mentions the name Jesus and there were many people running around at that time claiming to be "Christs" or annoited of God as a result of Roman occupation and suppression in Palestine) is confirmation of Jesus of Nazareth's existence is not just a far stretch of reality but an illogical leap.This would be like stating that non-Mormom historians/biographers who mentioning Joseph Smith's alleged story of his golden plates being given to him by the angel Moroni as advocating that these historians actually believed that an angel actually DID give these plates to Joseph Smith.In other words, even if the account of Tacitus is authentic and untampered, this is not evidence that Jesus of Christ actually existed much less that all the events mentioned in the NT concerning Jesus actually occurred.#2 JosephusThere has been debate both ways about the authenticity of Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum. Many experts in this field do believe that this account was tampered with. However, this will probably be continued to be analyzed for years to come. A lot of things do not make since of why Josephus an ardent Jewish historian and general would call Jesus, the Christ i.e. the Messiah and a lot of other things really don't add up in this account which has been rehashed over and over in this board (i.e. this account is not mentioned by Josephus contemporaries who . Therefore you cannot conclusively states that this is a 100% authentic source for an extra-biblical mention of Jesus Christ. Even if this passage was authentic, this only shows that Jesus Christ was possibly a real person but any information Josephus gleaned was from third hand sources at best and was never a witness to any of the events that occurred in the NT (except the destruction of Jerusalem).

---

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan