I was unimpressed with the list of scholars. This list is worse, way worse. I'll get to specifics in due course, but first I want to talk briefly about this form of argument, the Argument from Silence.
The basic form of this argument is that an author should have mentioned an individual/subject/whatever, but does not. For such an argument to bear any weight it must fulfill two criteria; 1) The author must have been able to comment, they must have had the relevant information available. 2) They should have mentioned it, that is to say, they are an author was in the habit of reporting such things.
I don't think that any of what we're about to see amounts to that.
I also think that there is a problem here with a certain type of presentism. Firstly, it is rare for our "complete works" of an author to record their entire body of work. Often we have only a percentage of their original output. It's obvious how this makes an argument from silence difficult to sustain.
Another problem here is this sort of argument;
Theodoric writes:
No-one refers to this passage for a millenium, even early Christians who actively sought such passages.
Did they? Because I don't think that they did.
Early Christians were not arguing with mythicists. They didn't address the notion that Jesus was fictional because, as far as we can tell, no-one was making that claim. They were arguing about the things that mattered to them in their own time, not seeking to refute an argument which would not emerge until the 19th century. Since mythicists like arguments form silence so much here's one; why do we have no record of anyone in the ancient world claiming that Jesus was completely made up? It's not like there aren't authors who would have relished such an idea. Tacitus springs to mind. But no, nothing. We cannot reasonably expect 1st Century to authors to address 21st Century arguments. The idea that early Christian authors would have had a special interest in sources that merely acknowledge the existence of Jesus without having further theological value is spurious and lends no weight to arguments from silence.
Right then, on to the list of authors who should have mentioned Jesus!
WRITERS WHO SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED JESUS
PHILO
[/list]
Does a single name count as a list? Oh no wait, we have another list, "writers who
probably should have mentioned Jesus", as though there were any inclusions here that are certain in the first place. This is a bit of a silly distinction in my view, just as the numbered certainty ratings are silly. Even with the "probably" included, that's a list of four authors. In order presented;
Philo This is the best case here, no doubt. And it's dreadful. Philo is writing in the 1st Century alright and he's in the right area, so this looks pretty reasonable on the surface. Further inspection though shows us that any argument from silence here must be deemed a failure.
For starters, most of Philo's remaining body of work is theological or philosophical in nature. There is no reason whatsoever why we should expect him to mention Jesus in any of these, unless "On Dreams", "On the Birth of Abel" or "Concerning Noah's Work as a Planter" are supposed to have reason to bring him up. As far as I know, only
Flaccus and
On the Embassy to Gaius deal with events of the day in any way that might give Philo cause to mention Jesus. Certainly they do not mention him, but nor do they mention any figure comparable to Jesus. Theudas was a Jewish rebel/prophet who led about 400 men to the River Jordan, promising to part its waters. This gathering was dispersed by Roman troops and many were killed, including Theudas, who was executed. Philo makes no mention of him. The so-called Egyptian Prophet led an even larger rebellion, promising that the walls of Jerusalem would fall before him and his followers. They didn't and again, the Romans took military action and slaughtered 400 of them. Philo makes no mention of this either. Philo does not mention a single one of the many High Priests of the Jewish temple from his time, almost as though he had little interest in such people. All of these people would have been much more notable in their time than Jesus, who spent most of his career in rural Galilee and only spent a brief period in Jerusalem (perhaps as little as a week) before being executed. The idea that Philo would have known about Jesus is suppositional and extremely shaky. The idea that he would have written about Jesus is completely unsubstantiated and appears to be false. This is no foundation upon which to build an argument form silence. I find this one unconvincing.
Seneca This one fails on the "would have" metric. Seneca died in 65CE, a time when Christianity was just another small Jewish sect, troublesome, but hardly important. The only reasons I have seen for supposing that Seneca should have mentioned Jesus seem to aimed at the mythic Jesus rather than any plausible figure. The argument made in the list demanding an explanation for forged letters between Seneca and Paul strikes me as unreasonable; we can't hold Seneca responsible for later Christian (mis)interpretations of his work, nor does it seem far-fetched to me that Christians would attributed forged material to him. They don't seem to have needed much encouragement to forge documents. I don't really see the objection here. Seneca's failure to mention Jesus may have seemed shocking to early Christians who thought that Jesus was a super big deal during his life, but it should come as no surprise to us. I don't think we can build a valid argument from silence here.
Plutarch Plutarch's most notable work is
Parallel Lives, a work of biography about prominent Greek and Roman figures. That clearly does not include Jesus. Plutarch's
Morialia is a better bet, since it is a collection of works on a variety of topics, but even this feels like a stretch. Much of that
Moralia covers topics where Jesus would be irrelevant, unless "a humorous dialogue between Homer's Odysseus and one of Circe's enchanted pigs" is supposed to mention him. Exactly where is Plutarch supposed to mention Jesus? Where is there material in Plutarch that specifically seems like it should mention Jesus? As far as I can tell, he didn't have any real interest in Jews, Judaism or Judea. I don't see any reason to doubt that Plutarch knew about Christianity, but nor do I see any reason why he should have thought it worth mentioning. Some of the arguments made in the list are just silly ("Plutarch wrote about influential Roman figures" - well bully for him. Jesus wasn't Roman though). There's nothing here that can support a valid argument form silence.
Justus This list makes no mention of the fact that the works of Justus are lost. It mentions Photius of Constantinople and his complaint that Justus should have mentioned Jesus. This must have seemed reasonable to Photius (cool name by the way. That's getting slapped on a D&D character!) but it should not be used as an argument from silence in a modern context. Photius, AKA St Photius the Great, was essentially Archbishop of Constantinople. He was a pious 9th Century Christia and would have believed Jesus to be a doer of great deeds. It would be reasonable for him to have expected Justus to have mentioned Jesus because Photius would have had a vastly exaggerated sense of Jesus' importance. It is far less surprising for modern observers. Also I think that making an argument from silence based upon works
which we do not have takes the piss. Also, you said "multiple writers and historians of the period and over the next 100 years", so 9th Century Justus is out of the running.
That's it. I don't find any of those examples compelling. The last one is awful. This does not come even close to the picture you presented.
As for the rest, the list only mentions "could have" candidates and I'm not in the least bit impressed by that. A valid argument from silence needs more than "could have". Damis, Apollonius, Pausanias, Aelius Aristides, Aulus Gellius,
Apuleius, Marcus Aurelius, Maximus of Tyre, Appian, Theon of Smyrna, Albinus, Aristocles, Apollodorus, Hephaestion, and Sextus Empiricus all fall outside of the hundred years you specify. Geminus, hilariously, falls before it, hailing from the First Century
BC.
Some of these examples are absurd in their choice of author. Why should Arrian, writing
History of Alexander mention Jesus? No reason at all. Florus may mention "many names" in his
Epitome of Roman History, but why should he mention the wholly irrelevant Jesus? No reason we are given (the list's author does not even trouble to mention that there is no certainty as to exactly which "Florus" is the author; there are three possibilities and the works may be by different authors). These examples are very, very poor. The idea that we can make a valid argument from silence regarding any of these is laughable.
The only author mentioned on this list for whom a strong case might be made that he should have mentioned Jesus is - the mythicist's favourite - Flavius Josephus. He is clearly very interested in Jewish figures, Jewish rebel and prophets and events in the region. He is a pretty good candidate for a "should have". And guess what? He does mention Jesus. Twice. Yet somehow, when this is brought up, mythicists have no interest in the contents of ancient documents. They are far more interested in what sources don't say than what they do say and that's no way to go about this kind of endeavor.
We should not be surprised that an author does not mention a given historical event or personage. They were not necessarily interested, and we do not always have the full works of such authors. Arguments from silence can be valid but they are dependent upon the two principles being adhered to and none of the examples cited here do that. It is not unusual for there to be a lack of contemporaneous sources. History is attested by sources far more fragmentary than we would like. Objecting to this comes across as naive as does this list.
Mutate and Survive
™ Version 4.2
