What is the secular historical basis for the consensus that Jesus existed as a human?

[spamandham]

I'm not interested in pedantry, or a debate. I am simply trying to understand what the rational is for presuming that Jesus actually existed as a human being (generally said to be an itinerate preacher), in the most concise form possible.

As I see it, the Gospel records are easily rejected on the grounds that;
- the Jesus character is so tightly coupled to mythology there is no way to distinguish fact from fiction
- they incorporate pre-existing myths such as the resurrection of Lazarus, the 153 fish story, the astrotheological symbolism of the birth story, water into wine, etc.

Paul's writings are also easily rejected as providing anything of substance because he states nothing of substance about Jesus, and further, even states that he was the one chosen to reveal the mystery. What mystery!? Isn't this a guy who lived just 20 years earlier Paul?

The rest of the NT is easily dismissed on similar grounds.

Josephus is dismissed for 3 reasons:
- he was a tabloid journalist, and his writings are of no value unless independently confirmable
- assuming the blurb about Jesus was actually penned by him, it is clearly not first hand knowledge, but is simply a handed down record
- it is doubtful the blurb about Jesus is genuine. It is either highly interpolated or an outright forgery. We have no idea what, if anything, Josephus knew about Jesus.

The question then is this. Is there any CREDIBLE historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form? If not, why do historians almost universally pander to the idea, when the simpler explanation is that he is a mythical figure?

[GakuseiDon]

I'm not interested in pedantry, or a debate. I am simply trying to understand what the rational is for presuming that Jesus actually existed as a human being (generally said to be an itinerate preacher), in the most concise form possible.
The following comment by atheist historian Michael Grant is quite concise:
...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.

[spin]

The following comment by atheist historian Michael Grant is quite concise:
...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.
Bloody silly, isn't it Gak? This gets paraded by people who have little understanding of history as though one should go "wow, this guy's an atheist and he says that!!" As I said, bloody silly.

You simply cannot apply to the christian testament the criteria that can be applied to classical sources. There are no coins to back up the historicity of christian literature. You cannot back it up with epigraphic or archaeological materials. The earliest christian literature fail even to be datable.

Grant was either out of touch with modern procedure, off his head or misquoted.


spin

[spamandham]

The following comment by atheist historian Michael Grant is quite concise:
...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.

This seems to me to be a commentary on the lax standards of historians rather than an argument in favor of a historical Jesus.

[GakuseiDon]

This seems to me to be a commentary on the lax standards of historians rather than an argument in favor of a historical Jesus.
If you say so. It is, at least, concise. It would need another historian to determine whether Grant is using lax standards or not, I'd think. It would be good to see Grant (or anyone else) justify his statement though.

Lowder looks at how historical questions are framed here:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/indconf.html

[Godless Raven]

This seems to me to be a commentary on the lax standards of historians rather than an argument in favor of a historical Jesus.

Agreed.

Personally, I can't say whether a rabbi radical named Iesous ever walked the planet living the preaching life that an historical Jesus is said to have lived. But my opinion is...there's no good reason to believe he did.

My reasons are:

1. The nativity story is clearly fictional. So is the lineage to King David.

2. The massive inconsistencies in the goseples not to mention the exclusive use of only the 4 gosepels over so many others.

3. The lack of historical evidence of a man who allegedly healed sick and raised the dead during a time when people were willing to believe just about anything and the development of linguistics was exploding in the area.

4. The miracles are...so incredibly unrealistic and lacking in evidence whatsoever.

5. The way he is allegedly captured is even inconsisten in the scriptures and this is a pretty important key element to the story since it's what leads to his death.

6. The already mentioned parallels to many pagan resurrecting godmen.

7. The massive gaps of decades between the writtings of his alleged biography. (decades back then could easily be a generation considering the estimated life span)

8. The unlikeliness of an actual ressurection ever taking place in the real world.

9. What appears to be an evolution of religion starting with primative sun gods right up until what we currently have, which give or take a little can actually be traced.

10. The New Testement

:D

[Laura D.]

Is there any CREDIBLE historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form? If not, why do historians almost universally pander to the idea, when the simpler explanation is that he is a mythical figure?

Historians may refuse to dismiss an historical Jesus out of fear that they must then dismiss some pet figure from ancient history if they applied to it equivalent standards. As non-historians, we do not face the same biases, so we are better positioned to excise an historical Jesus is we choose (I do not, but then you know my bias). One historian I respect is Will Durant, the Pullitzer Prize Winner of Will and Ariel Durant fame, e.g., The Story of Philosophy and The Story of Civilization series.

His acknowledges that "there are many contradictions between one gospel and another, many dubious statements of history, many suspicious resemblances to the legends told of pagan gods, many incidents apparently designed to prove the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, many passages possibly aiming to establish a historical basis for some later doctrine or ritual of the Church." He notes that the New Testament evangelists shared with Cicero, Sallust, and Tacitus the conceptions of history as a vehicle for moral ideas." But ultimately, he firmly supports the accuracy of "an historical Jesus." He contends that in the enthusiasm of its discoveries, the Higher Criticism has applied "tests of authenticy so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies—e.g., Hammurabi, David, Socrates—would fade into legend." You can more fully examine his position in Part III of his Story of Civilization.

I also respect Joseph Klausner (a Jewish scholar, so he has his own biases). According to Klausner, "If we had ancient sources like those in the Gospels for the history of Alexander or Caesar, we would not cast any doubt upon them whatsoever." Bless his heart, I think we may all agree he puts his case a bit strongly. But, as I said, historians don't dismiss Jesus partly for fear of losing their own particualr pet favorites. Now, we all know of Klausner's love for Alexander (the earliest biographies of Alexander date some 400 years after his death in 323 B.C.). So you might understand why he might swing his bat for Jesus in order to keep Alexander safely in play.

Now, I love the analogy of Josephus to a tabloid journalist. And I won't deny it carries some accuracy (the analogy is on point for almost every ancient historian—the idea of a neutral, unbiased historical record is anathema to almost any rational scholar of ancient times). But let's be honest, Josephus is a pretty significant source for a lot of post exilic Jewish history. Josephus,writing for the Roman government in the 70's A.D. records some incidental things regarding Christ and the church. He confirms that John the Baptist died at the hand of Herod (this same incident is recorded in the gospels) as well as the death of, "The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James. . . he delivered them to be stoned" (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, ch. V, p. 20; Book XX, ch. IX, p. 140 ). While you can dismiss Josephus as a hack, he has proved a reliable source of history for information regarding the First Jewish-Roman war and the rise of Herod the Great. Josephus likely lived during the time of Christ. His reference to Christ is in passing, he has no particular axe to grind in favor of the existence of Christ. So we can take it that within 40 years of Christ's death, the knowledge of who he was was widespread enough that Josephus could reference him and expect his readers to know exactly who he was talking about. More importanly, at the time of his writing, we could reasonably expect living eyewitness to exist who might dispute his existence. In fact, given that the Christians of that time were part of a rather suspect movement, we could expect Josephus to dispute the existence of Jesus if this was a mythical figure.

Tacitus is another reasonable extra-Biblical source. His description of the nine-day Roman fire of late July in 64 C.E. references both the Christians and the one called Christ:

Christus, the founder of that name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. (Annals 15-44)

Now Tacitus is not a fan of Christians, is a respected (oft cited) Roman with access to the records of Rome and certainly a motive to dismiss as mythical Jesus.

From an historical standpoint, I think the existence of a Jesus the man, a movement of some sort, the execution of this Jesus, and the continuation of some sort of movement will be acknowledged by the majority of serious historians (those hacks), while they will clearly dispute just about anything else (miraculous works included).

This is certainly the case if we compare the historical basis for Jesus with other figures such as Muhammad (lived from A.D. 570 to 632, biography written in 767); Buddha (lived in 6th Century B.C., first biography 1st Century A.D.); Gathas of Zoroaster (lived 1,000 B.C., biography 3rd century A.D.).

God bless,


Laura

P.S. With respect to Josephus, I think most secular (and many religious) historians dismiss as subsequent Christian interlineations those copies of Josephus, which reference the Messiah, his resurrection, prophecies, miraculous works, etc.

[hatsoff]

The evidence is not overwhelming, certainly, but we can arrive at the existence of Jesus in a progressive fashion.

First we establish the existence of Paul. His catalog of Epistles is sufficient to do that, but what's more it gives him a voice which can testify to some facts of the 50s AD. In them, he mentions James, Peter and John by name, and eludes to other "Apostles." He claims to have personally met both Peter and James. Thus we have strong evidence for the existence of two companions of Jesus, and therefore for Jesus as well.

This evidence is weak on its own, though, and requires corroboration. Fortunately, we have it: If Josephus' discussion of Jesus is entirely interpolation, there is still the matter of his mention of James. Tacitus may have gotten his information from nth-hand traditions, but Papias claims to have known at least two disciples of the original Apostles. And of course there are the volumes of literature dedicated to the man Jesus, fictional or not.

I think the sum of the evidence strongly suggests the existence of a man named Jesus who lived in the first century and taught at least a few Apostles. Given that, it is probably fair to say he was crucified for some reason, as tradition has testified. Beyond that, it's difficult to speculate what else he might have done, or might have been done to him.

There remains some small doubt that the man ever really existed, but in my opinion that is quite unlikely.

[lpetrich]

None of that absolutely rules out the existence of some historical prototype; there could have been a historical Jesus Christ who was much like the self-styled prophets that Josephus had described: John the Baptizer, Theudas, "the Egyptian", etc.

But even if there was, much of the Gospels is still unhistorical; not only the miraculous parts, but likely also some of the non-miraculous parts, like his trial. For starters, lynch mobs don't usually consider themselves to blame (Matthew 27:25). And as to Pontius Pilate's character, Philo and Josephus both agree that he was rather ruthless, not someone who had to be pushed into sentencing JC to crucifixion. And given the track record of zealous followers of various movements, some of JC's followers would likely have stubbornly stayed at his side, unless "persuaded" otherwise by the local Roman garrison.

As to the crucifixion itself, JC died unusually fast; crucifixion victims usually survived for several hours.

[Laura D.]

None of that absolutely rules out the existence of some historical prototype; there could have been a historical Jesus Christ who was much like the self-styled prophets that Josephus had described: John the Baptizer, Theudas, "the Egyptian", etc.

But even if there was, much of the Gospels is still unhistorical; not only the miraculous parts, but likely also some of the non-miraculous parts, like his trial. For starters, lynch mobs don't usually consider themselves to blame (Matthew 27:25). And Philo and Josephus both agree that Pontius Pilate was rather ruthless, not someone who had to be pushed into sentencing JC to crucifixion. And some of JC's followers would likely have stubbornly stayed at his side, unless "persuaded" otherwise by the local Roman garrison.

As to the crucifixion itself, JC died unusually fast; crucifixion victims usually survived for several hours.

Granted,

Well, I'm not granting the truth of what you say. But I completely get what you're saying. The reason I was intrigued by Spamandham's question is it's narrow focus: Is there any CREDIBLE historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form?

This we can address. To summarize Lowder, if we define 'historicity of Jesus' as 'whether the Christ of the New Testament existed -- whether Jesus was born of a virgin, performed miracles, etc.,' we take the question out of the realm of basic historical analysis. I find it more legitimate to ask whether the Jesus of the New Testament is based upon a person who actually lived' and not 'whether this person did the deeds the New Testament claims he did.'

Leaving Lowder, let me put it in another context. Some find it frustrating to debate evolution with creationists. It's because many creationists simply dismiss basic scientific tenants to arrive at the result they want. We can attack the historical existence of Jesus the man in the same way, dismissing the empirical standards employed by historians in evaluating the reliability of various historical facts. But then I think we have to be intellectually honest and fully acknowledge the real scope of what we dismiss in terms of man's history when we do so.

And with that statement (which even I'm not sure I understand), I'll head to bed.

God bless,


Laura

[lpetrich]

(Will Durant listing clearly mythological elements in JC's biography...) But ultimately, he firmly supports the accuracy of "an historical Jesus." He contends that in the enthusiasm of its discoveries, the Higher Criticism has applied "tests of authenticy so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies—e.g., Hammurabi, David, Socrates—would fade into legend." You can more fully examine his position in Part III of his Story of Civilization.
What are those tests of authenticity that he had referred to? I've yet to see them anywhere.

This is certainly the case if we compare the historical basis for Jesus with other figures such as Muhammad (lived from A.D. 570 to 632, biography written in 767); Buddha (lived in 6th Century B.C., first biography 1st Century A.D.); Gathas of Zoroaster (lived 1,000 B.C., biography 3rd century A.D.).
There are serious questions about how much we really know about those three gentlemen, and if there was a historical Jesus Christ, he would be in much the same situation.

According to Wikipedia, "As few of the details of the Buddha's life can be independently verified, it is difficult to gauge the historical accuracy of the these accounts." -- and his canonical biography has events that are dismissed by non-Buddhists as mythology, like when he was born, someone had prophesied that he would become a great religious leader.

And the historicity of at least some of the canonical Islamic biography of Mohammed has also been questioned, especially in recent years.

As to Zoroaster, though he is generally considered to have existed, estimates of when he lived have varied widely.

I find it more legitimate to ask whether the Jesus of the New Testament is based upon a person who actually lived' and not 'whether this person did the deeds the New Testament claims he did.'
That's a reasonable question to ask, though it involves conceding that at least some of the Gospels' content is unhistorical.

We can attack the historical existence of Jesus the man in the same way, dismissing the empirical standards employed by historians in evaluating the reliability of various historical facts. But then I think we have to be intellectually honest and fully acknowledge the real scope of what we dismiss in terms of man's history when we do so.
Fair enough.

But some Jesus mythers, like Earl Doherty with his Jesus Puzzle (http://www.jesuspuzzle.com) site, do seem to have been reasonably rigorous in their work.

[yalla]

If you had asked me a handful or so years ago if was there a real historical JC I probably would have said "I dunno, maybe, but surely not the bits about walking on water and rising from the dead and so on".
The "there must have been something to start things up", logic [or lack of].
Because although I studied history and politics I had not looked at Christianity, its texts and its history, at all.
I just sort off went with the flow and the consensus of what surrounded me.
And of, of course, that is within the context of being born, raised, educated and living in a society where Christianity, whether one was a believer in god[s], Christian or any other variety, was embedded thoroughly in the society and the culture, its history music, poetry, "holydays" etc.
It's in the air and the water.
So if you dont have specific specialised knowledge [regarding Chritianity's origins] how can, or why would you, question the overwhelmingly dominant orthodox paridigm?
And if you did dare to dip an academically inquisitive toe into that specialised field I suspect the specialists [read "Christian scholars" not "scholars of Christianity"] would have pointed out your shortcomings, eg lack of specific knowledge of particular ancient languages [have a look at threads about the meaning of 1 single word in Hebrew or Koine Greek to see the detail they can entail], a lifetime [how many lifetimes does a scholar have?] of study in a narrow field, and suggested that you work your side of the street and stay away from their turf.
One of the first scholars I did read when I started studying this stuff was G.A. Wells and I later read that he was criticised for stepping out of his field into that of the Christian scholars.
Sort of a union demarcation dispute situation.
And Wells is one of the few scholars I have read concerning Christianity who was not a Christian.
Even the heavily criticised Jesus Seminar are Christians AFAIK.

That is my suggestion as to why standard historians more or less concede the discussion/debate to the orthodox Christian scholars, default rather than debate.
cheers
yalla

[GakuseiDon]

But some Jesus mythers, like Earl Doherty with his Jesus Puzzle (http://www.jesuspuzzle.com) site, do seem to have been reasonably rigorous in their work.
Having examined Doherty in depth (admittedly as a layman), looking at his "fleshy sublunar realm" and for his opinions on Second Century apologists, I'd suggest that he isn't as rigorous as you might think. Regardless of whether there were a historical Jesus or not, I think Doherty's concept (as it stands) can be reasonably rejected.

That is my suggestion as to why standard historians more or less concede the discussion/debate to the orthodox Christian scholars, default rather than debate.
I think that is because no alternative has been pushed in scholarly circles, at least in the last 50 years. Richard Carrier has said that he will be publishing his ideas on a Christ-myth sometime in 2007, so he may be the first.

[The Bishop]

I'm not interested in pedantry, or a debate. I am simply trying to understand what the rational is for presuming that Jesus actually existed as a human being (generally said to be an itinerate preacher), in the most concise form possible.

As I see it, the Gospel records are easily rejected on the grounds that;
- the Jesus character is so tightly coupled to mythology there is no way to distinguish fact from fictionI've never understood this point. I'm not denying that a great deal that is derived from mythology, not to mention Jewish scripture. But I don't really see how anybody cam claim that it's "so tightly coupled to mytholgy" when there are self evidently hundreds of details which have nothing to do with any known mythology whatsoever. It's just too easy to point to the virgin birth - only even mentioned in two of the four Gospels, after all - the miracles, the crucifixion and the resurrection and say that such-and-such a mythological character had a virgin birth and performed miracles, and this other mythological character was executed, and another one died and rose again. Patently mythological details can be added to any real life, and there are plenty of other historical characters of whom this can be said. But who would create a mythology about a son of King David born in Bethlehem, and then make him a Galilean carpenter? What mythos does that come from?

Paul's writings are also easily rejected as providing anything of substance because he states nothing of substance about Jesus, and further, even states that he was the one chosen to reveal the mystery. What mystery!? Isn't this a guy who lived just 20 years earlier Paul?He states nothing of substance about Jesus, and yet he talks about him all the time. Lets take a modern equivalent - say a statesman like Tony Blair. The number of words expended on this man, every single day in the newspapers, must be of a phenomenal order of magnitude. Yet what proportion of this deals with his early life? His town of birth? Individual acts of kindness or compassion he may have performed in his life? Even from writers who support him? If you exclude direct reportage of his actual newsworthy doings, a huge amount is written about Tony Blair that deals with him entirely in the abstract - who his friends and enemies might be, what his political machinations in the background might - only might, please note - have been engineered by him, what his core political beliefs are and how they have changed, "support" for America, "policy" in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is why the argument from silence is totally worthless in my opinion. You simply can't derive either Jesus's existence or his non-existence from the fact that Paul never mentions the name of Jesus's mother.

And about your last sentence - if resurrection from the dead isn't some kind of mystery, I really wonder what would qualify?

The rest of the NT is easily dismissed on similar grounds.You're going to have to demonstrate this, I'm afraid. Unless you just mean the rest of the letters and Revelation, about which I quite agree.

Josephus is dismissed for 3 reasons:But why? Why go to the trouble of dismissing him? You're first two reasons are specious and would never be applied in any other historical writing about any figure about whom historicity was in doubt. In a time when Josephus's "tabloid journalism" is the only thing available, any historian is grateful to get any clues at all. Independent confirmation is appropriate in this media heavy world, but you get what you can. In any case, Josephus is being cited as the independent confirmation for the NT accounts that there was such a person. You can't dismiss the confirmation because it doesn't have its own confirmation - you'd be using the other thing as confirmation and Josephus as backup! And why does the Gospel account, even though it is larded with a great deal of acknowledged fiction, not count as corroboration to Jesus's life for Josephus?
- he was a tabloid journalist, and his writings are of no value unless independently confirmable
- assuming the blurb about Jesus was actually penned by him, it is clearly not first hand knowledge, but is simply a handed down record
- it is doubtful the blurb about Jesus is genuine. It is either highly interpolated or an outright forgery. We have no idea what, if anything, Josephus knew about Jesus.That there are interpolations is absolutely indisputable. But it does not read entirely as if it could have been written by only one man - why praise in one sentence and damn the next? There is sufficient to state that he knew about Jesus and the kind of man he was, and he didn't think much of him.

The question then is this. Is there any CREDIBLE historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form? If not, why do historians almost universally pander to the idea, when the simpler explanation is that he is a mythical figure?The answer is simply that! Since historians generally accept the historicity of Jesus, the evidence for his existence must be credible, and all of the objections you raise are not sufficient. Nobody's claiming Mary was really a virgin or that he literally rose from the dead (I myself believe that he didn't die when he was supposed to have done). You aren't really doing anything by continuing to deny what credibility there is except denigrate the integrity of the majority of historians.

Real historians don't just look at the obviously fictional parts of any source document. They assess it as a whole, and find the parts which are consistent with what is known from other sources. In the case of Jesus, the level of anachronism, for example, is remarkably low compared to other mythological/religious figures. The sheer quantity of documents about him from such a wide array of sources makes it more likely there really was such a living person, in that the four canonical accounts that we have are probably no further than third hand away, and conceivably second hand (Mark as dictated by Peter, or John being dictated by the "disciple that Jesus loved"). On any such criteria, most historians would accept the existence of Jesus simply on the balance of probabilities.

[spin]

Hi Laura, welcome.

I'm about to breathe fire and brimstone, so have your asbestos suit on.
Historians may refuse to dismiss an historical Jesus out of fear that they must then dismiss some pet figure from ancient history if they applied to it equivalent standards. As non-historians, we do not face the same biases, so we are better positioned to excise an historical Jesus is we choose (I do not, but then you know my bias). One historian I respect is Will Durant, the Pullitzer Prize Winner of Will and Ariel Durant fame, e.g., The Story of Philosophy and The Story of Civilization series.
I wonder why Will Durant gets dragged into this sort of discussion so often. He was writing a long time ago. We have since become a lot more critical of our primary sources. Yet people still seem to think that "popular" history is keen. I don't really understand it. It's like finding Britney Spears' lyrics deep.

His acknowledges that "there are many contradictions between one gospel and another, many dubious statements of history, many suspicious resemblances to the legends told of pagan gods, many incidents apparently designed to prove the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, many passages possibly aiming to establish a historical basis for some later doctrine or ritual of the Church." He notes that the New Testament evangelists shared with Cicero, Sallust, and Tacitus the conceptions of history as a vehicle for moral ideas." But ultimately, he firmly supports the accuracy of "an historical Jesus." He contends that in the enthusiasm of its discoveries, the Higher Criticism has applied "tests of authenticy so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies—e.g., Hammurabi, David, Socrates—would fade into legend." You can more fully examine his position in Part III of his Story of Civilization.
Let's breeze through history on a wing and a prayer. Really, what criteria are involved in such a pronouncement?

He doesn't even know when the christian texts were written -- but then who does? A modern historian would never treat unprovenanced works the way he does. It is outrageous to claim that he can look into the minds of the writers of the texts. He simply didn't have a full pack to play with. So much information wasn't available to him that is available to us today. One can't fault Durant for not having information that was not available. He wrote what he could with the cards he had. But to use him in serious historical discussion is like quoting from an encyclopaedia as a scholarlys source.

I also respect Joseph Klausner (a Jewish scholar, so he has his own biases). According to Klausner, "If we had ancient sources like those in the Gospels for the history of Alexander or Caesar, we would not cast any doubt upon them whatsoever."
This of course is patently absurd. Throw away all the texts about Rome and we still have coins and incriptions that render Caesar more tangible than any figure in the bible. Alexander left cities which sprung up at the time that he was accredited to have passed through the places. Two of them still stand today. Klausner had a touch of the histrionics rather than history when he mumbled that gem.

Bless his heart, I think we may all agree he puts his case a bit strongly. But, as I said, historians don't dismiss Jesus partly for fear of losing their own particualr pet favorites. Now, we all know of Klausner's love for Alexander (the earliest biographies of Alexander date some 400 years after his death in 323 B.C.). So you might understand why he might swing his bat for Jesus in order to keep Alexander safely in play.
But then, how many coins bear his image??

Josephus,writing for the Roman government in the 70's A.D. records some incidental things regarding Christ and the church.
These issues have been looked at a number of times in the archives. It is always good to check them before dealing with issues.

He confirms that John the Baptist died at the hand of Herod (this same incident is recorded in the gospels)
This one seems a fair chance of being an original.

as well as the death of, "The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James. . . he delivered them to be stoned" (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, ch. V, p. 20; Book XX, ch. IX, p. 140 ).
This one is a wring-in. Josephus the Jew will not call someone who died the christ. It would be sacrilegious: the messiah is the one who comes to save the sons of Israel. For a Jew death is an obvious indication of falseness of the messiahship. Besides, for a Roman audience of Greek, the term "christ" meant "oil" and so would be unfathomable in the context.

The grammar is so contorted to be about to talk about James by mentioning the unmentioned Jesus first!

His reference to Christ is in passing, he has no particular axe to grind in favor of the existence of Christ.
It's further worthy of note that despite the fact that the word "christ" appears over 40 times in the LXX it is only found in Josephus when referring to Jesus. Do you start to smell the fish?

Tacitus is another reasonable extra-Biblical source. His description of the nine-day Roman fire of late July in 64 C.E. references both the Christians and the one called Christ:

Christus, the founder of that name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. (Annals 15-44)
This is another passage we've looked at here. Note the context: Tacitus is building up his case against Nero regarding the fire. Suddenly the case which should have ended with the populace, despite Nero's best efforts to the contrary, believing he was responsible for the fire. Then you get this awful passage about the christians (in which Pilate is erroneously called a procurator, even though Tacitus knows the history of Roman administration of Judea as he shows in the Histories), which takes the reader away from the finely wrought attack on Nero to a passage giving christianity in a nutshell.

This passage gives the reader the impression that the Roman populace and Nero's agents could easily distinguish the christians, obviously from other eastern beliefs. The populace called them christians. How does your average garden-variety Roman pleb polytheist distinguish one monotheistic religion from the next?

And stylistically, we have one of the most impressive orators of the period, Tacitus, writing some brutal Latin full of alliteration, and going into garish detail of the exquisite horrors that Nero was supposed to have heaped upon his victims, yet Tacitus shunned such writing elsewhere.

There are more problems than reasons to support this passage.

This is certainly the case if we compare the historical basis for Jesus with other figures such as Muhammad (lived from A.D. 570 to 632, biography written in 767); Buddha (lived in 6th Century B.C., first biography 1st Century A.D.); Gathas of Zoroaster (lived 1,000 B.C., biography 3rd century A.D.).
These comparisons are useless. We are trying to do history here, not bolster other religions.

Would you like to go and see the battlefield where Hannibal fought against the Romans near Lake Trasimene? People are still finding artefacts there from the battle. Would you like to see a series of statues that shows Augustus as he ages? Would you like to see the mummies of a number of Rammessid pharaohs whose bones and features show the familial relationship between them? How about copies of a treaty between the Hittites and the Egyptians found in situ in Hattusis and at Luxor? These things are tangible evidence of history.

Josephus describes the camps around the foot of Masada as the Romans besieged the place. People didn't believe him until the camps were found. Despite writing an apology for the Jews, Josephus was a capable historian. But when we deal with such ancient works we have to evaluate the content of the material we want to use. Is the writer reliable? Is the text reliable?

I fault both the reference from Josephus and from Tacitus as not being reliable text. I do this not by citing modern opinions, but by working with the source texts and with what we know about the writers. It is not strange to think that both these texts were preserved by christian scribes, some of whom were responsible for the orthodox courruption of scripture. Is it strange that marginal comments have crept into these classical authors? Someone notes in the margin that this James is the brother of Jesus who is (called) "christ". With Tacitus though, it isn't marginalia, but an active corruption.


spin

[gurugeorge]

This evidence is weak on its own, though, and requires corroboration. Fortunately, we have it: If Josephus' discussion of Jesus is entirely interpolation, there is still the matter of his mention of James.

This is also dubious. It seems to me pretty clear that the "Jesus" who "James" is the brother of in that passage is the "Jesus son of Damneus" mentioned at the end of it, and that "who was called Christ" is merely the interpolation of an importunate and none-too-bright Christian scribe, who having scoured the text discussing the period when "Jesus" was supposed to have been alive, felt that this "Jesus" must have been the Christ, on account of the mention of James, regardless of the fact that the events clearly have nothing to do with either the NT Jesus or the NT James!!!

In fact, it looks like a measure of desperation, a clutching at straws, and in this sense makes it even more clear that Josephus, the contemporary who one would most expect to have mentioned this mysterious preacher/revolutionary had he existed, doesn't mention him at all (even though he mentions all sorts of lunatics of the day, some of them even called "Jesus"!):-

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 sanhedrin 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 sanhedrin without his consent. (24) 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.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that instead of "who was called Christ", the original text had simply "son of Damneus".

[The Bishop]

Unfortunately that doesn't make any sense at all, in any kind of historical context. The criticisms of overzealousness against the high priest for his stoning of James were surely not sufficient that the compensation be that the stoned person's brother would be the one to supplant Ananus as High Priest?

The order of events are - Ananus is HP - James is stoned - the people complain - Ananus is sacked - a guy called Jesus son of Damneus is appointed HP.

I don't see how you would write about that by naming the final beneficiary of the events first, and then mentioning James as his brother. You would mention James first, then describe what happened, and then mention that the HP was Jesus the brother of said James. Even without the "Christ" part, it's clear that James's breaking of the Law is somehow connected to whoever the first Jesus is, in which case it's unlikely in the extreme that that very same person be the one who gets the very top job in Judaism (short of the King).

Agrippa may have disliked Ananus for his own reasons, but it's unlikely that he would ever support anybody whose principal claim to fame was breaking the Law and absolutely certain that he would not support (accepting the Jesus "called the Christ" context) anybody who claimed to be the messiah.

[Amaleq13]

I'm not interested in pedantry, or a debate. I am simply trying to understand what the rational is for presuming that Jesus actually existed as a human being (generally said to be an itinerate preacher), in the most concise form possible.

Parsimony.

The following comment by atheist historian Michael Grant is quite concise:...

It is also an example of the logical fallacy of an appeal to adverse consequences. The fact that a claim would result in unwanted consequences says nothing about the validity of the claim.

[hatsoff]

This is also dubious. It seems to me pretty clear that the "Jesus" who "James" is the brother of in that passage is the "Jesus son of Damneus" mentioned at the end of it, and that "who was called Christ" is merely the interpolation of an importunate and none-too-bright Christian scribe, who having scoured the text discussing the period when "Jesus" was supposed to have been alive, felt that this "Jesus" must have been the Christ, on account of the mention of James, regardless of the fact that the events clearly have nothing to do with either the NT Jesus or the NT James!!!

Quite right. I had not realized that; thankyou for correcting me.

In fact, it looks like a measure of desperation, a clutching at straws, and in this sense makes it even more clear that Josephus, the contemporary who one would most expect to have mentioned this mysterious preacher/revolutionary had he existed, doesn't mention him at all (even though he mentions all sorts of lunatics of the day, some of them even called "Jesus"!):-

Remember, though, Josephus was not a "contemporary."

[jakejonesiv]

The evidence is not overwhelming, certainly, but we can arrive at the existence of Jesus in a progressive fashion.

First we establish the existence of Paul. ...

This has yet to be established. All we have are a collection of alleged letters that cannot be shown to exist before the second century.

Jake Jones IV

[No Robots]

I also respect Joseph Klausner (a Jewish scholar, so he has his own biases). According to Klausner, "If we had ancient sources like those in the Gospels for the history of Alexander or Caesar, we would not cast any doubt upon them whatsoever." Bless his heart, I think we may all agree he puts his case a bit strongly. But, as I said, historians don't dismiss Jesus partly for fear of losing their own particualr pet favorites. Now, we all know of Klausner's love for Alexander (the earliest biographies of Alexander date some 400 years after his death in 323 B.C.). So you might understand why he might swing his bat for Jesus in order to keep Alexander safely in play.


These are unwarranted slurs on Klausner's scholarship. His reasons for asserting Christ's historicity are derived from his reading of the Gospels, which, in Klausner's view, reveal the presence of a single outstanding personality. For example, of Christ's parables, Klausner writes:

almost all are stamped with the seal of one great, single personality, the seal of Jesus, and not the several seals of many and various disciples. (more here (http://constantinbrunner.info/sbise/1/200605011100.htm))

It would be better if you were to take issue with these assertions directly, rather than make unsubstantiated insinuations of Jewish and idolatrous (ie. plumping for Alexander) biases.

It seems that many people believe that critical reading requires a priori a defensive posture when approaching a text so that the reader's critical outlook doesn't become contaminated through accepting the arguments that are in the text. This is not critical reading, but radical unreading: it is an attempt to keep ideas at bay by pre-emptively assigning them to a category of bias.

[Laura D.]

I wonder why Will Durant gets dragged into this sort of discussion so often. He was writing a long time ago. We have since become a lot more critical of our primary sources. Yet people still seem to think that "popular" history is keen. I don't really understand it. It's like finding Britney Spears' lyrics deep.

Fair enough. Which primary source using, non-popular ancient historian do you consider most qualified to address this issue who most strongly advocates your view?

I fault both the reference from Josephus and from Tacitus as not being reliable text.

I see sufficient basis to accept that Josephus wrote something about Jesus while fully accepting at least by 240 A.D., Christians had interlineated his text so that it would adhere to their view of Christ. I get your disagreement. We just disagree. As for Tacitus, he is a reliable source for his era. I feel you overstate the case for rejecting him as an authoritative source.

But ultimately, we are not the only ones to clash on this material. And thankfully, we have Wiki now. So we may all revel in the debate. Quite simply, I find nothing intrinsically improbable about a historical Jesus. Many scholars will consider the New Testament alone (or at least portions of it) as reliable enough to provide evidence of a historical Jesus.

But then, how many coins bear his image??

To clarify, you comfortably base your claim for an historical Alexander on the fact that numerous coins bear what is arguably a title, the “Protector of Man” and carry a pictograph of a figure alternatively dressed as Zeus, Hercules, or Hermes, which coins were struck from a few years before Alexander's purported death to more than 100 years after his death. Well, you also rely on the fact that cities exist where Alexander is supposed to have founded them, which facts we know from the ancient biographies of his life.

I admit, it’s sexier to believe a single man conquered the known world in nine short years and was then struck down while tragically and beautifully young than to argue for a slow growing empire that expanded over years while governed by a series of Caesars or in this case, Alexanders.

In any event, I appreciated your warm welcome to the forum.

God bless,


Laura

[gurugeorge]

Quite right. I had not realized that; thankyou for correcting me.

YW! - and very civil and courageous of you to say so.

Remember, though, Josephus was not a "contemporary."

Agreed, but the closest we have I suppose.

[Laura D.]

These are unwarranted slurs on Klausner's scholarship. His reasons for asserting Christ's historicity are derived from his reading of the Gospels, which, in Klausner's view, reveal the presence of a single outstanding personality.

No Roberts,

I apologize for what you feel was an unwarranted slur on Klausner's scholarship. In you, he has an able defender. Your persuasive explanation of the rock solid foundation that underlies Klausner's scholarship must lay to rest any insinuation that he is other than an authoritative, neutral, candle-burning truthseeker. I appreciate your desire to focus on the quality of scholarship rather that the motive or bias of a particular source.

In closing, I want to make two things clear. First, I do agree with this particular advocate for the historicity of Jesus. And second, I equally reject any insination that Klausner is a histrionic mumbler (even if Spin's commend did make me laugh).

God bless,


Laura

[Godless Raven]

"Jesus Weren't No Monkey!"

[andrewcriddle]

This is also dubious. It seems to me pretty clear that the "Jesus" who "James" is the brother of in that passage is the "Jesus son of Damneus" mentioned at the end of it, and that "who was called Christ" is merely the interpolation of an importunate and none-too-bright Christian scribe, who having scoured the text discussing the period when "Jesus" was supposed to have been alive, felt that this "Jesus" must have been the Christ, on account of the mention of James, regardless of the fact that the events clearly have nothing to do with either the NT Jesus or the NT James!!!

In fact, it looks like a measure of desperation, a clutching at straws, and in this sense makes it even more clear that Josephus, the contemporary who one would most expect to have mentioned this mysterious preacher/revolutionary had he existed, doesn't mention him at all (even though he mentions all sorts of lunatics of the day, some of them even called "Jesus"!):-



In fact, I'd be willing to bet that instead of "who was called Christ", the original text had simply "son of Damneus".

As The Bishop said, In this case one would expect James to be introduced as James the son of Damneus and the new high priest to be introduced as Jesus brother of the aforementioned James or something similar

James the brother of Jesus the son of Damneus would be a decidedly unusual identification particularly since Jesus son of Damneus has not yet been mentioned. I can't think of any parallels; does anyone know of any ?

Josephus is more likely IMO to have expected his audience to know who Jesus called Christ was (a messianic claimant whose followers were currently making a nuisance of themselves in Rome) than to know who Jesus son of Damneus was (a very obscure high priest.)

Andrew Criddle

[The Evil One]

Two things that have always puzzled me about "brother of Jesus, who was called Christ":

Firstly, doesn't it seem a bit odd that Josephus would use such an important religious term simply as a means of distinguishing one Jesus from all the others?

Secondly, doesn't identifying James as the brother of X imply that X has been mentioned somewhere in the preceding text, which "Jesus called Christ" does not seem to have been?

Willing to be corrected on these points by anyone with a better knowledge of Koine and Josephus than me (i.e. any knowledge at all...)

[Godless Raven]

It seems to me to be very odd... with all of the multiple Jesus references in Josephus which are not refering to a historical JC it does seems bizzare that he would make such little reference to the one who supposedly made the largest impact.

Much more likely to be completely misinterpreted - IMO.

[Cheerful Charlie]

I'm not interested in pedantry, or a debate. I am simply trying to understand what the rational is for presuming that Jesus actually existed as a human being (generally said to be an itinerate preacher), in the most concise form possible.

As I see it, the Gospel records are easily rejected on the grounds that;
- the Jesus character is so tightly coupled to mythology there is no way to distinguish fact from fiction
- they incorporate pre-existing myths such as the resurrection of Lazarus, the 153 fish story, the astrotheological symbolism of the birth story, water into wine, etc.

The question then is this. Is there any CREDIBLE historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form? If not, why do historians almost universally pander to the idea, when the simpler explanation is that he is a mythical figure?

Because it is reasonable. Jesus gas mucg more writtten about him than many other historical figures, gospels and Paul. Within 25 years after hgis death, his cult had spread across the Roman world.

Messiahs were a dime a dozen then, so no big deal, Jesus was hardly unique here. That he
ws slain for his pretensions, well so were others. At his time the Essenes were still awaiting the resurrection of their teacher of righteusness, dead a century then.

The messianic Jews of his time rejected Jesus. Ge was not of teh stock of David,
and he was no born at Bethlehem, requirements then by these messianics. So we see the infant narratives and other bits and pieces dealing with that problem with fake geneologies and infant narratives. This all indicates Jesus was real, and not born at Bethehem. He was crucified but
but the body disappeared. We get the gospels confused on that point as to what happened next.
Typical for a criminal crucified for sedition. We know he was a Galilean, because that was again
a problem. Messianics rejected him for that fact. Galilea was not really part of Israel until long
after days of Judges, an inconvenient problem for gospel writers.

So you gave a dead Messiah, wg did nt do the expected messiag take over of the physical world as expected. He was promoted to a Osirian style soter god. Later trinitarianism made him a real god, not just a dead prophet nor a demi-god like Hercules.

There is just for me, too much inner detail that tells us who he was and why he failed at the regulation messiah business. Paul made Jesus a hit with Pagans looking for a more sophisticated
yet simplified religion. Again, no big deal, several new rival religions did well too.

I see very strong evidence that as a man, he lived.
Jesus does not smack of total mythology.

Cheerful Charlie

[Clivedurdle]

Michael Wood, in Search of Myths and Heroes does not tackle Jesus but makes a couple of interesting comments.

"In what we call the Hellenistic age (from 300 BC to the first century AD) (sic) Greek culture became internationalized and mixed with Jewish, Egyptian, Indian and Persian influences.

Like today's Americans, the Greeks created an international civilisation, and many local cultures aped it....coveting their brilliant advances in technology, art and politics." p168.

What language is the New Testament written in? Is it similar to other Greek literature?

P 148

"'I'd be very careful about historical kernels if I were you' said Yair Zakovitch with a twinkle in his eye.'The whole story sounds very much like a fairy tale to me." (About Queen of Sheba!).

What genre do the gospels and New Testament belong to?

[andrewcriddle]

On the general point raised by the OP

Studying the origins of Christianity is a legitimate secular historical project. As part of this project one must either a/ take the accounts of Christian origins given in reasonably contemporary sources as being at least moderately good evidence, or b/ regard them as near worthless by reasons of their bias and other problems

a/ probably leads to a historical Jesus (most people, IMO rightly, think it improbable that our existing sources were in their original context proclaiming a mythical Jesus in say Doherty's sense.)

b/ has the disadvantage that it replaces an account supported by near contemporary evidence with one with no ancient evidence at all and which is not intrinsically clearly more plausible than the alternative it is replacing.

Hence rejecting a historical Jesus seems to lead either to radical skepticism about our ability to know how Christianity arose, or to excessive skepticism about a historical Jesus coupled with excessive credulity about a non-historical alternative.

Andrew Criddle

[Clivedurdle]

Hence rejecting a historical Jesus seems to lead either to radical skepticism about our ability to know how Christianity arose

Sorry, I think I have a reasonably clear picture that fits with generally understood views - it is the big bang hj - or is it unknown rabbii who gets christified that to be honest does not give a clear picture of how xianity arose!

I see loads of different people into gnostic messianic ideas, mixed with various concepts "in the air" of an actually Greek Empire controlled by Romans in contact with a very wide range of cultures, add in a few wars, some probably excellent playwrights for the Passion story, some later chancey religious experiences of an emperor and his family, some authoritarian doctrinal attitudes and slowly marinade for two thousand years.

Some detail, history, probabilities, making sense of actual groups around, all in all a far stronger explanation than a goddidit big bang with various model jesii depending on the strength of one's faith!

[ynquirer]

The question then is this. Is there any CREDIBLE historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form?


Tacitus’ Annals 15:44 is credible historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form. No serious historian doubts of either its authenticity or the writer’s seriousness in checking sources.

[ynquirer]

Christus, the founder of that name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for the moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. (Annals 15-44)

This is another passage we've looked at here. Note the context: Tacitus is building up his case against Nero regarding the fire. Suddenly the case which should have ended with the populace, despite Nero's best efforts to the contrary, believing he was responsible for the fire. Then you get this awful passage about the christians (in which Pilate is erroneously called a procurator, even though Tacitus knows the history of Roman administration of Judea as he shows in the Histories), which takes the reader away from the finely wrought attack on Nero to a passage giving christianity in a nutshell.

This passage gives the reader the impression that the Roman populace and Nero's agents could easily distinguish the christians, obviously from other eastern beliefs. The populace called them christians. How does your average garden-variety Roman pleb polytheist distinguish one monotheistic religion from the next?

And stylistically, we have one of the most impressive orators of the period, Tacitus, writing some brutal Latin full of alliteration, and going into garish detail of the exquisite horrors that Nero was supposed to have heaped upon his victims, yet Tacitus shunned such writing elsewhere.

There are more problems than reasons to support this passage.

There are two points in this criticism. The first one is the alleged perpetration of material error by the writer of Annals 15:44 on calling Pilate a procurator - an error that Tacitus would never have committed. The second point is alleged inconsistency within the paragraph: it begins a case against Nero, ends as evidence of the historical Jesus.

The whole criticism hinges on the alleged mistake: this serves the critics the purpose to erode the writer’s credibility. Yet if the critique on alleged mistake is dismissed, the rest of the criticism is purely interpretative, that is to say, almost nothing. I shall here deal with the alleged mistake while leave the discussion of the rest of the criticism for subsequent posts - if someone still wishes to contend for the opposite opinion.

In 1961 a carved stone was discovered that called Pilate “prefect of Judea” (click here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_pilate#.22Pilate_Inscription.22_as_historical_support_for_Pilate.27s_existence) for additional information). It has since become customary for mythicists - that is, supporters of the idea that Jesus did not exist as a historical person - to say that extant Annals 15:44 commits a mistake that Tacitus would not have committed. Quite wrong. Procuratorship and prefecture were by no means incompatible.

I shall not claim personal authority, but Wikipedia’s (click here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Governor#Equestrian_procurator)):

“Equestrian procurator

The Emperor also had under his control a number of smaller, but potentially difficult provinces that did not need an entire legion. These provinces were put under the control of governors of equestrian status. New conquests generally fell into this equestrian category but most were later changed in status to reflect the changing conditions of Roman's growing empire. Thus, a province would become upon conquest a procuratorial province until it was decided that it should become either an imperial or senatorial province and thus governed by either a propraetor or proconsul. Like the other imperial provinces, the equestrian governors could serve any length of time up to 5 years, or even longer.

[…]

Though the practice of appointing equestrians to help manage provinces officially began with Augustus, governors from years before had appointed procurators to help them govern. However, it was not until the reign of Claudius that these procurators received the powers of a governor. Though by definition the procurators were prefects, a procuratorship was a more formal way of denoting a prefect’s authority to govern. It is important to note that procurators were not magistrates, so did not own imperium, and merely exercised the Emperor’s, or governor's, authority with his approval." (Bold type is mine, y.)

According to this, therefore, that Annals 15:44 calls Pilate - a notorious member of the equestrian order - the procurator of Judea does not exclude his altogether being the prefect of that province - a particularly difficult one in which he served for ten years. What Tacitus does here is to state a more formal way of denoting his authority as prefect to govern. Not a mistake, but proof of his expertise in Roman administration instead.

[Malachi151]

The question then is this. Is there any CREDIBLE historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form? If not, why do historians almost universally pander to the idea, when the simpler explanation is that he is a mythical figure?

No, there isn't ANY credible evidence for the existance of Jesus, and to boot, as you said, the story fo Jesus is much better explained as mythology than as history.

Why do people treat him as a real figure? 2,000 years of weight behind it, and most historians aren't specifically scholars of the existance of Jesus, so they just assume.

[spamandham]

First we establish the existence of Paul.
...
He claims to have personally met both Peter and James.
...
If Josephus' discussion of Jesus is entirely interpolation, there is still the matter of his mention of James.

I'm willing to accept that Paul actually existed. I agree the evidence of that is strong. I'm also willing to accept he knew two men, Peter, and James who were early Christian leaders, and that James could easily be the same James spoken of by Josephus.

That said, I don't see how any of this demostrates the existence of a historical Jesus, unless Paul tells us about interactions between Jesus and these other two men. But he doesn't.

Paul seems to be totally clueless as to any details about an earthly Jesus other than his death and resurrection. I would say this lack of discussion on Paul's part, when it would have been extremely relevant in establishing the authority of his writings, is actually direct evidence that neither Peter nor James had known Jesus personally either.

Regarding Josephus, I'm willing to accept that Josephus had heard about Jesus. The problem is, if Jesus WAS a mythical legendary figure, Josephus would not know that, and would rightfully simply assume the Jesus fellow he hears people talking about was a real person. I don't think Josephus was lying about Jesus or making things up, I just don't think he did any real journalism to confirm what he had heard. The flying chariots he reports later on is proof of the tabloid nature of his writings. The fact he was reporting a lot of hearsay does not make his writings worthless, but it does reduce their significance substantially. What he wrote about Jesus was not unique (assuming he wrote it). It is the same knowledge any learned person probably would have heard in the first century via Christian sources.

[Malachi151]

I'm willing to accept that Paul actually existed. I agree the evidence of that is strong. I'm also willing to accept he knew two men, Peter, and James who were early Christian leaders, and that James could easily be the same James spoken of by Josephus.

That said, I don't see how any of this demostrates the existence of a historical Jesus, unless Paul tells us about interactions between Jesus and these other two men. But he doesn't.

Paul seems to be totally clueless as to any details about an earthly Jesus other than his death and resurrection. I would say this lack of discussion on Paul's part, when it would have been extremely relevant in establishing the authority of his writings, is actually direct evidence that neither Peter nor James had known Jesus personally either.

Regarding Josephus, I'm willing to accept that Josephus had heard about Jesus. The problem is, if Jesus WAS a mythical legendary figure, Josephus would not know that, and would rightfully simply assume the Jesus fellow he hears people talking about was a real person. I don't think Josephus was lying about Jesus or making things up, I just don't think he did any real journalism to confirm what he had heard. The flying chariots he reports later on is proof of the tabloid nature of his writings. The fact he was reporting a lot of hearsay does not make his writings worthless, but it does reduce their significance substantially. What he wrote about Jesus was not unique (assuming he wrote it). It is the same knowledge any learned person probably would have heard in the first century via Christian sources.

#1) Josephus never wrote anything about "Jesus"

1) The "brother of James" quote is an interpolation.
2) The other paragraph is purely added later, and even if it weren't, the source is clearly the Christian story either way, even if Josephus did write it its not an independent account.

#2) I doubt that "Peter" was real. His name and role are too mythical.

#3) Someone wrote the "letters of Paul", whoever that was we can call Paul.

#4) Paul was a liar.
a) Paul says that he saw a vision of Jesus. That's an outright lie unless you believe in the magic.
b) When Paul says that he met with James he says: "I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother. 20I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie."

That's a dead giveaway that its a lie..... Paul says many things that can't se so, such as 500 people seeing Jesus after he came back from the dead, etc.

[spamandham]

Tacitus’ Annals 15:44 is credible historical evidence that supports the idea that Jesus existed in human form. No serious historian doubts of either its authenticity or the writer’s seriousness in checking sources.

Tacitus was one of the most rigorous writers of his day. He is known to have drawn upon numerous sources, including official records. That being the case, is there any way to determine whether or not he drew upon Roman records or eyewitness accounts regarding the man mentioned in Annals 15.44?

Tacitus referred to the one executed under Pilate as "Christus". He also referred to Pilate as a procurator instead of prefect. The latter could be a matter of simple human error on his part, which is unlikely considering the rigor of his writings.

But by referring to the man executed as "Christus" instead of a formal name (Jesus son of whoever from whereever) the best guess is that his source for this information was NOT Roman records, or even eyewitness accounts, but rather a Christian source of unknown integrity. This source apparently didn't even know that Pilate was a prefect rather than a procurator.

In other words, 15.44 is a strong affirmation of the existence of Christianity, but is a terribly weak case for a historical Jesus.

I don't think anyone contends the existence of Christianity in the first century.

[Malachi151]

Tacitus was one of the most rigorous writers of his day. He is known to have drawn upon numerous sources, including official records. That being the case, is there any way to determine whether or not he drew upon Roman records or eyewitness accounts regarding the man mentioned in Annals 15.44?

Tacitus referred to the one executed under Pilate as "Christus". He also referred to Pilate as a procurator instead of prefect. The latter could be a matter of simple human error on his part, which is unlikely considering the rigor of his writings.

But by referring to the man executed as "Christus" instead of a formal name (Jesus son of whoever from whereever) the best guess is that his source for this information was NOT Roman records, or even eyewitness accounts, but rather a Christian source of unknown integrity. This source apparently didn't even know that Pilate was a prefect rather than a procurator.

In other words, 15.44 is a strong affirmation of the existence of Christianity, but is a terribly weak case for a historical Jesus.

I don't think anyone contends the existence of Christianity in the first century.

Not only this, but this is two sentences in a series of books. This wasn't the subject of what we was writing about, this is simply one footnote. The idea that Tacitus would have even tried to do any meaningful research on this to find any records is absurd.

This was one minor clarifying statement in a very large set of documents, hardly the thing he would have wasted time on.

[GakuseiDon]

Regarding Josephus, I'm willing to accept that Josephus had heard about Jesus. The problem is, if Jesus WAS a mythical legendary figure, Josephus would not know that, and would rightfully simply assume the Jesus fellow he hears people talking about was a real person.
Why would he have assumed that? Why wouldn't Josephus have known that the Jesus people were talking about was a mythical legendary figure?

[lpetrich]

The following comment by atheist historian Michael Grant is quite concise:
...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.
Grasping at straws.

Do we believe that Pythagoras, Plato, Alexander the Great, and Augustus Caesar had gods as their biological fathers? That is what biographers like Iamblichus, Diogenes Laertius, Plutarch, and Suetonius had claimed about them, or at least had mentioned such claims about them.

Quite simply, I find nothing intrinsically improbable about a historical Jesus. Many scholars will consider the New Testament alone (or at least portions of it) as reliable enough to provide evidence of a historical Jesus.

(Alexander the Great...)

There are both multiple sources and archeological evidence that one can check against; in some cases, one can even date archeological remains. So we can be confident that Alexander the Great was not only real, but that he did what he was described as doing, even though he is the sort of person who tends to attract myths to himself. And myths he did attract, like his biological father being Zeus and the temple of Artemis in Ephesus burning down when he was born because he would become a great disaster for Asia.

Alexander the Great was described as having made it into India, and what Greek historians like Arrian describe of it agrees fairly well with what we know directly of India.

King Sandracottus -- Chandragupta
The priestly caste of Brachmanes -- Brahmans
Several other castes, each with different occupational specialties
Gymnosophists ("naked philosophers") -- ascetic mystics

It seems to me to be very odd... with all of the multiple Jesus references in Josephus which are not refering to a historical JC it does seems bizzare that he would make such little reference to the one who supposedly made the largest impact.
Yes, the Gospels describe him as being a big celebrity who was followed around by large crowds and who allegedly worked LOTS of miracles.

So if there was a historical Jesus Christ, that part of the Gospels' description of him is likely unhistorical.

[spin]

Fair enough. Which primary source using, non-popular ancient historian do you consider most qualified to address this issue who most strongly advocates your view?
Wrong approach. It's not the historian, it's the primary source that you should be looking at. The historian will point you at the primary sources. If I point to the primary sources, that's fuctionally the same thing.

I see sufficient basis to accept that Josephus wrote something about Jesus while fully accepting at least by 240 A.D., Christians had interlineated his text so that it would adhere to their view of Christ. I get your disagreement. We just disagree.
Once you remove the christ reference, which is an admission of text tampering (though you'd need to justify your limiting of the tampering) you then you have to deal with the strange word order which is rather odd in Josephus.

As for Tacitus, he is a reliable source for his era. I feel you overstate the case for rejecting him as an authoritative source.
You need to interact with the text. I see no sign of you having done so.

But ultimately, we are not the only ones to clash on this material.
We haven't clashed on the material you have presented no case and I have hardly presented a full case.

I find nothing intrinsically improbable about a historical Jesus.
We are not dealing with "probabilities". We seen lying with statistics so often.

We are dealing with textual analysis in a number of different aspects.

Many scholars will consider the New Testament alone (or at least portions of it) as reliable enough to provide evidence of a historical Jesus.
They simply aren't doing history. A historian who cannot say when a text was written, by whom, for what audience and for what reason, yet uses the text is not doing history.

To clarify, you comfortably base your claim for an historical Alexander on the fact that numerous coins bear what is arguably a title,
Is there some reason you omitted the fact that a number of cities cropped up through the world at the time attributed to the person that match conquests he was involved in? The later accounts of Alexander gain their validity from the archaeological evidence for the events in them. The coins, found in early Seleucid tradition are simply more evidence for the person and they bear an image related to that for the statuary as well as the fine early sarcophagi. We then need to consider the appearances of a Ptolemaic Egypt, a Seleucid Syria, even a unified Greece at the time that the cities were inaugurated. Please be reasonable with the available evidence.

I admit, it’s sexier to believe a single man conquered the known world in nine short years and was then struck down while tragically and beautifully young
I don't need to buy into this hollywoodian scenario. We have a physical manifestation that co-incides with the literary histories of Alexander. That is what is important. I don't really care a fig about Alexander, though there was someone responsible for the tactics attributed to him for a series of battles which took place on known battlefields and those tactics function in the physical context of the battlefields, ie an Alexander responsible for them is the most economical yet realistic explanation for them.

I think you are being willful in your efforts to undermine Alexander for your own religio-tendentious purposes.

...than to argue for a slow growing empire that expanded over years while governed by a series of Caesars or in this case, Alexanders.
For the sudden explosion in Greece and the aftermath in Asia, which brought down the Achemaenid dynasty and reached India, a series of generals doesn't explain the evidence.

In any event, I appreciated your warm welcome to the forum.
Despite the fact that some of us are rather pernickety and will challenge whatever assumptions that seem unsupported, we are always happy to accept any thinking person willing to take up the arms of discourse and debate and use them well. I hope you enjoy your stay.


spin

[spin]

There are two points in this criticism. The first one is the alleged perpetration of material error by the writer of Annals 15:44 on calling Pilate a procurator - an error that Tacitus would never have committed. The second point is alleged inconsistency within the paragraph: it begins a case against Nero, ends as evidence of the historical Jesus.

The whole criticism hinges on the alleged mistake: this serves the critics the purpose to erode the writer’s credibility. Yet if the critique on alleged mistake is dismissed, the rest of the criticism is purely interpretative, that is to say, almost nothing. I shall here deal with the alleged mistake while leave the discussion of the rest of the criticism for subsequent posts - if someone still wishes to contend for the opposite opinion.

In 1961 a carved stone was discovered that called Pilate “prefect of Judea” (click here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontius_pilate#.22Pilate_Inscription.22_as_historical_support_for_Pilate.27s_existence) for additional information). It has since become customary for mythicists - that is, supporters of the idea that Jesus did not exist as a historical person - to say that extant Annals 15:44 commits a mistake that Tacitus would not have committed. Quite wrong. Procuratorship and prefecture were by no means incompatible.
This is a well worn path. At this point I usually tell people to RTFA, which is an acronym based on a better known acronym RTFM, "Read The F**king Manual", where in this case it is "A" for archives. The subject of procurator and prefect in the context of Tacitus has been discussed before.

You've shown a good reason why one should be careful when using Wiki in that one needs to know something about the subject to be able to criticise the material before citing it.

a procuratorship was a more formal way of denoting a prefect’s authority to govern

A procurator was an imperial appointment. A prefect was a military appointment. Procurators were answerable to the emperor. Pilate was answerable to the Syrian legate. Procurators had financial control over their province while Judea's finances were handled by Syria. Your selected citation from Wiki is actually misinformation.

The upgrading of the province of Judea took place under the reign of Claudius. Tacitus in forms us in H.5.9

The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave.

Tacitus wrote the Histories before the Annals, so we can see that he had a clear understanding of the political administration of Judea at the time he wrote about Nero. Entrusting Judea into the hands of equestrians and royal freed men puts Judea's finances directly into the hands of the province's administration, ie into the hands of procurators and no longer in the hands of the Syrian legate.

According to this, therefore, that Annals 15:44 calls Pilate - a notorious member of the equestrian order - the procurator of Judea does not exclude his altogether being the prefect of that province - a particularly difficult one in which he served for ten years. What Tacitus does here is to state a more formal way of denoting his authority as prefect to govern. Not a mistake, but proof of his expertise in Roman administration instead.
Plainly, this doesn't reflect either Tacitus or the reality of the appointments.


spin

[xaxxat]

Thanks, spin. I absolutely love watching you slice through others arguments like a hot knife through butter!

:notworthy:

[ynquirer]

A procurator was an imperial appointment. A prefect was a military appointment. Procurators were answerable to the emperor. Pilate was answerable to the Syrian legate. Procurators had financial control over their province while Judea's finances were handled by Syria. Your selected citation from Wiki is actually misinformation.

Your confusion here is notorious - and certainly bold, as you dare to discredit Wikipedia.

To begin with, there was no such a thing as an imperial appointment as opposed to a military one. Military appointments were either imperial or senatorial, though it is true that procuratorship was always an imperial appointment. But the theory that Pilate was answerable to the Syrian legate is an invention of yours. Philo, in his Embassy to Gaius, calls Pilate “one of the emperor’s lieutenants” (31:299), and he complains of Pilate’s behavior to Gaius Norbanus Flaccus, a former consul but for the time being without an official post, while the sons of the King of Judea complain to Tiberius, with full success, rather than to the Syrian legate. All this quite strongly suggests that Pilate was answerable to the emperor and that his post was an imperial appointment.

The upgrading of the province of Judea took place under the reign of Claudius. Tacitus in forms us in H.5.9

The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave.

You clearly misread this paragraph. The kings that were “either dead, or reduced to insignificance,” were Agrippa and his brothers. Agrippa, in particular, had been enthroned by Caligula. This bizarre kingdom was abolished once for all by Claudius, who resumed the prior tradition to appoint Roman Knights, that is, members to the equestrian order, or even - and this was a novelty - to “his own freedmen.” There was no “upgrading” of the province, only a restoration of a previous status discontinued by Caligula. The province was still procuratorial, neither proconsular nor propraetorial - either of these two would have brought such upgrading with it.

[spin]

Your confusion here is notorious - and certainly bold, as you dare to discredit Wikipedia.
Please do not waste your breath. This position of yours is not credible. Use Wiki as a primer for your personal understanding, then check it out. It is not citable material. It is better to cite the source material.

To begin with, there was no such a thing as an imperial appointment as opposed to a military one.
You go on to show that this is not the case in your next sentence...

Military appointments were either imperial or senatorial, though it is true that procuratorship was always an imperial appointment.
Not quite accurate but closer than your previous sentence. A procurator by his position is related to the emperor in a private manner. He administered the emperor's private property. The prefect is a generic military functionary.

But the theory that Pilate was answerable to the Syrian legate is an invention of yours. Philo, in his Embassy to Gaius, calls Pilate “one of the emperor’s lieutenants” (31:299), and he complains of Pilate’s behavior to Gaius Norbanus Flaccus, a former consul but for the time being without an official post, while the sons of the King of Judea complain to Tiberius, with full success, rather than to the Syrian legate. All this quite strongly suggests that Pilate was answerable to the emperor and that his post was an imperial appointment.
Philo is welcome to his opinion, but the facts are clear. The legate of Syria was both in the position to admonish and to remove Pilate.

You clearly misread this paragraph. The kings that were “either dead, or reduced to insignificance,” were Agrippa and his brothers. Agrippa, in particular, had been enthroned by Caligula.
Agrippa took over the province previously administered by a series of prefects. Please don't be rhetorical until you have command of the matter.

This bizarre kingdom was abolished once for all by Claudius, who resumed the prior tradition to appoint Roman Knights, that is, members to the equestrian order, or even - and this was a novelty - to “his own freedmen.” There was no “upgrading” of the province, only a restoration of a previous status discontinued by Caligula.
Judea was no longer under the control of Syria. It was financially independent of Syria. The mention of "freedmen" is quite consistent with procurators, but it certainly is not for prefects. The distinction, which is one of class, would not be one that Tacitus could cloud.

The province was still procuratorial, neither proconsular nor propraetorial - either of these two would have brought such upgrading with it.
The province came under the control of a procurator. It was not under such control before that. A procurator has the capacity to deal with financial issues, not a subject available for prefect, not a subject for Syrian controlled Judean finances.

Do you know of evidence in classical sources for procurators who were in charge of provinces before the time of Claudius? I would be interested in that.


spin

[Laura D.]

Wrong approach. It's not the historian, it's the primary source that you should be looking at. The historian will point you at the primary sources. If I point to the primary sources, that's fuctionally the same thing.

I appreciate your point. But I lack (1) your background in the sources; (2) an in-depth understanding of the culture and background of these two men so that I might distinguish analystically between your position and that of, e.g., ynquirer. Frankly, I’m more a check out Wiki, hit-the-Internet girl.

Now, I find Ynquirer persuasive. But you’ve solidly stated your own case that there is no basis for belief in an historical Jesus. As Xaxxat has said, “You slice through our arguments like a hot knife through butter.”

So you’ve peaked my interest. I’m intrigued by your position. I read what the Internet tells me about these sources (I seem to have found the same translations). I’ve hit Wiki. I’ve linked to the sites they cite.

But I’m ready to move beyond the Internet. So that was why I asked if you could direct me to a scholar who has conducted the same independent research as yourself, backed by the education of an ancient historian with the ability that gives to review the sources in their original language and context, someone who has published peer-reviewed work (I don’t dispute your position on “popular” historians; I don’t want someone trying to hit the top ranks on Amazon like a Strobel—though I enjoy his books, I don’t put him in the peer-reviewed, academic scholar category).

Let me give you an example of why for me (not a scholar) the original source approach alone doesn’t work:

Ynquirer points out that Pilate could have been both procurator and prefect.
You hot-knife back that Pilate answered to the Syrian Legate.
Ynquirer ripostes that Pilate was buddies with the emperor (paraphrasing).

Now me, I know just enough to be dangerous. Pilate served longer than usual for a prefect. Tiberius didn’t put a legate in Syria for the first six years of Pilate’s term. But this simply makes my head spin when I try to analyze your respective positions. I suddenly feel like the “What Should I Do Retard” on Yahoo Answers.

What does it mean? Do I go back to Crosson? He’s readable. But then I just regurgitate support for my own position (disputes prophecy-remembered Jesus, argues some form of historical Jesus). But that’s not growth. So I’d rather dive into some weighty academic tome that debunks the historical Jesus (though I enjoy your and Ynquirer’s debates, I don’t’ feel comfortable relying on either of you as my “reliable source.”

I think you are being willful in your efforts to undermine Alexander for your own religio-tendentious purposes.

Fair enough, I’ll be like Earl Doherty in the future and keep my eye on the residue:

"Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue."

God bless,


Laura

[spin]

So that was why I asked if you could direct me to a scholar who has conducted the same independent research as yourself,...
I'm sorry that I just can't really point you to a particular scholar who has published on the areas that are necessary for the current issue.

Ynquirer points out that Pilate could have been both procurator and prefect.
You hot-knife back that Pilate answered to the Syrian Legate.
Ynquirer ripostes that Pilate was buddies with the emperor (paraphrasing).
(How one could really say, I don't know. There is so little information about Pilate.)

Now me, I know just enough to be dangerous. Pilate served longer than usual for a prefect. Tiberius didn’t put a legate in Syria for the first six years of Pilate’s term.
The indications we have is that Tiberius's officials tended to hold their offices for longer terms than under other emperors. The previous prefect of Judea was Valerius Gratus who was on the job 15-26 CE.

But this simply makes my head spin when I try to analyze your respective positions... I don’t’ feel comfortable relying on either of you as my “reliable source.”
And you shouldn't rely on us. Some issues may be unresolvable -- I don't think this one is --, but the methodology will not change. It's what can be demonstrated from the available sources which takes priority.

Fair enough, I’ll be like Earl Doherty in the future and keep my eye on the residue:

"Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue."
I don't hold Doherty's philosophical position. Jesus may have existed, though I can't see how we can get past that mere possibility. In all studies the scholar is ultimately agnostic. S/he can enthuse over some point that seems totally appealing at one juncture though must be prepared to abandon it if new data or better analysis comes along to put that point in doubt.

One of the most important issues I believe that should come out of participation in this forum is that good methodology is the fundamental issue for much of the discussion. We may not follow it at times, but it is our aim. We try to say what we can show (and by show we mean from the primary sources as best as we can access them).


spin

[spamandham]

Why would he have assumed that? Why wouldn't Josephus have known that the Jesus people were talking about was a mythical legendary figure?

For the same reason those telling him about it didn't know it was myth (assuming it was). Are we to believe Josephus has some kind of special powers that allowed him to discriminate myth from reality? If It seems to me Josephus could easily have fallen into the same trap I suspect modern historians have fallen into - simply assuming that aspects of a legendary figure that sound reasonable are thus true.

But in many (most? all?) cases of known legendary figures, the conclusions you would draw from such an analysis are patently false. For example, if we analyze Santa using such a standard, we would conclude that he was a real man who really wore a red suit and distributed gifts via a reighndeer drawn sleigh. He lived in the arctic circle, and he had a team of individuals he paid to manufacture toys all year long. He must have been quite wealthy to afford all this.

We would reject the part about the sleigh flying, and we would reject the magical aspects about going up and down chimneys, but the other details would stay because they are reasonable.

But if we are to accept the history of St. Nick as presented by the Catholic church, not one shred of our conclusions are correct. The moral is that once you transition from mostly historical to mostly legend and myth, there is no longer anything conclusive you can claim, not even the existence of the individual in question.

[GakuseiDon]

For the same reason those telling him about it didn't know it was myth (assuming it was). Are we to believe Josephus has some kind of special powers that allowed him to discriminate myth from reality? If It seems to me Josephus could easily have fallen into the same trap I suspect modern historians have fallen into - simply assuming that aspects of a legendary figure that sound reasonable are thus true.
Sure, I understand that. But the time-line is quite narrow. Josephus was a contemporary of Paul. If Paul believed in a mythical Christ, then that doesn't allow a lot of time for the "historicization" process to occur. It doesn't make it impossible, just very unlikely IMHO.

But if we are to accept the history of St. Nick as presented by the Catholic church, not one shred of our conclusions are correct. The moral is that once you transition from mostly historical to mostly legend and myth, there is no longer anything conclusive you can claim, not even the existence of the individual in question.
Not 100%, sure. We can still ask what is the most likely, however. In this case, if Josephus had heard from the Christians of his time about someone called Jesus who had started their faith, then the most likely explanation is that it was because that is what they thought was the case. And given that Josephus was a contemporary of Paul and a near-contemporary of Jesus, that's pretty strong evidence for a historical Jesus.

[andrewcriddle]

I see loads of different people into gnostic messianic ideas, mixed with various concepts "in the air" of an actually Greek Empire controlled by Romans in contact with a very wide range of cultures, add in a few wars, some probably excellent playwrights for the Passion story, some later chancey religious experiences of an emperor and his family, some authoritarian doctrinal attitudes and slowly marinade for two thousand years.


The idea of pre-Pauline forms of full-blown Gnosticism doesn't seem to have any solid evidence to support it.

Andrew Criddle

[Clivedurdle]

The idea of pre-Pauline forms of full-blown Gnosticism doesn't seem to have any solid evidence to support it.

Andrew Criddle

Who mentioned full blown gnosticism? What happened to Pagels who argues Paul is a full blown gnostic? Where did Zarathustra go? What about the myriads of messiahs, essenes, whatevers? Is not Plato with the concept of the shadow and the real gnostic thought?

I said it was clearly part of the culture, a clear interaction between a new world of Greek ideas and surrounding cultures.

We have all the ingredients, a good fertile soil for something to grow in - and it did!

I have a strong argument to explain a phenomenon using what we know about the time and place. You seem to be returning to some form of big bangism.

Why?

[rlogan]

Historians may refuse to dismiss an historical Jesus out of fear that they must then dismiss some pet figure from ancient history if they applied to it equivalent standards.

Hi Laura D. Welcome.

The process of peer review publication in historical literature has nothing to do with these kinds of "fears". I think maybe you took the statement that had no citation from GakusiDon and inferred this from it.

Historians, by definition, are not doing religious work - which is, however, what "Christian Historians" (oxymoron) are doing.


You might want to spend some time in the archives on the Testimonium Flavianum and the James passage. I see spin has already weighed in on Tacitus and there's some material there too in the archives.


It isn't until we get to Pliny's correspondence with Trajan that we are finally at a secure Roman source mentioning Christians.

Despite doing his best (including torture) to discern what this superstition is all about, he finds nothing worth writing regarding any Jesus. There is a "Christ" they worship, but again, nothing about lineage to some real personage.

heh. The apologists will of course rush in with the standard "there was no need to mention a Jesus". Of course not. He's only the most important thing in the whole religion, supposedly.

[blastula]

You simply cannot apply to the christian testament the criteria that can be applied to classical sources. There are no coins to back up the historicity of christian literature. You cannot back it up with epigraphic or archaeological materials. The earliest christian literature fail even to be datable.

How does the documentation compare for other historical figures like say Caesar or Brutus? Or for a comparable religious figure who left behind no personal writings?

[ynquirer]

Please do not waste your breath. This position of yours is not credible. Use Wiki as a primer for your personal understanding, then check it out. It is not citable material.

Actually, Wikipedia is a source open to whoever knows better than what is written down there on whatever topic. It is not a source based on the authoritative knowledge of such and such distinguished scholars but on the confrontation and rational discussion among different people. (BTW you ought to propose changes in the Wiki article referred by me so as to spare other people being misled.)

I don’t agree with the full contents of the article either. In particular, I wouldn’t say that “by definition the procurators were prefects” (see below), and I would qualify some statements. All in all, however, the article fairly well matches the standard knowledge on the issue.

I used to think Wikipedia was a source of sorts, especially in a forum like this where people dismiss before hand the most serious scholarship - an iconoclast approach I do praise. Yet if you ban it as a source, well - what is left? No scholarship, no Wiki, only your personal authority to state things with that self confidence that made someone say: “I absolutely love watching you slice through others arguments like a hot knife through butter!” Forgive me, but that is not much for me.

A procurator by his position is related to the emperor in a private manner. He administered the emperor's private property. The prefect is a generic military functionary.

Well, I could agree with this. What I cannot agree with is the case you construe on such a generic statement, and the evidence - in accordance with the statement - you dismiss when it comes to contradict your case.

A prefect was a governor in subordinate position. His superior was either the emperor himself in a straightforward manner - as a “lieutenant,” as Philo say, since being a prefect a military appointee as he was, he was in the relationship of a lieutenant to the commander-in-chief - the emperor himself. Or else his superior was a legate - a commander of one or a few legions. You think the latter to be the only possible situation. This is the point in which you are wrong.

Romans were far more pragmatic than that. Prefects as a rule were members of the equestrian order - Knights - while legates were always members of the higher nobility - Patricians. An equestrian prefect so was twice the inferior of a patrician legate: once as a prefect, another in class-ranking. This was part-offset by the organization of procurators. Procurators were managers of property, this is correct. They were always members of the equestrian order, too. Every legate in charge of an imperial province - such as Syria - had attached a procurator in charge of such duties as collecting taxes; he managed the money. The Syrian procurator was by no means a subordinate to the Syrian legate; the former was accountable to the emperor himself - this is still true. Assuming ex hypothesis that you were right and Pilate the prefect of Judea was accountable to the Syrian legate and that the Syrian procurator was the prefect’s fellow equestrian, in normal provinces of the imperial description that would be enough. But not in especially troubling provinces. In such provinces, long distances imposed long delays to the supply of financial resources. If the prefect needed money, he might wait for months, and perhaps the business was urgent. In such troublemaking provinces the emperor bestowed on the prefect the powers of a procurator, that is, authority to use the imperial resources for political purposes, while freed him from subjection to a legate by having him be his lieutenant.

That was Pilate’s condition according to both Tacitus and Philo. Still Josephus says that prefect Pilate made use of money of the Temple to carry a current of water to Jerusalem, which caused much grievance. That sacred money - for the Jews - was of course imperial property. Yet, according to your own definition of a procurator, do you really think that Pilate would have dared to take the emperor’s money without the approval of a procurator hadn’t he been in such commission?

No fewer than three historians starkly say or at least quite strongly suggest that Pilate was entrusted the powers of a procurator, and you still maintain that he was answerable to the Syrian legate, that a prefect (military chief) was never a procurator (a property manager), and kind of such inventions? You only contradict yourself, for - what happened when Claudius appointed knights and freedmen as procurators? Was the military command (prefecture) taken away from them? Nonsense.

Philo is welcome to his opinion, but the facts are clear.

Really? The sole fact you do have is a text in Tacitus’ Histories, which is apt to a different interpretation, as I showed in my previous post.

This is the way the mythicist argues. He or she sticks to an inconclusive evidence to deny probative force to no matter how many coincident historical sources. Tacitus says that Pilate was a procurator in the same paragraph in which he provides us with evidence of Christ’s life? That must be a forgery. Philo says that Pilate was the emperor’s lieutenant, so suggesting that he was independent from the Syrian legate and, as a consequence, in charge of military command and economic administration all together? He is welcome to his opinion, but ignores facts. Josephus reports that Pilate administered economic resources in a polemical manner? Well, you probably have something to say to dismiss Josephus’ testimony.

Tacitus’, Philo’s, and Josephus’ testimonies is what history is made of. This all too clearly discloses the mythicist’s purpose, viz. to put the whole historical discourse in disarray so as to have free hand to write it anew, as an anti history. Surely every age has a right to rewrite history as it pleases to fit in its own tastes?

Nice going.

[gurugeorge]

As The Bishop said, In this case one would expect James to be introduced as James the son of Damneus and the new high priest to be introduced as Jesus brother of the aforementioned James or something similar

James the brother of Jesus the son of Damneus would be a decidedly unusual identification particularly since Jesus son of Damneus has not yet been mentioned. I can't think of any parallels; does anyone know of any ?

Josephus is more likely IMO to have expected his audience to know who Jesus called Christ was (a messianic claimant whose followers were currently making a nuisance of themselves in Rome) than to know who Jesus son of Damneus was (a very obscure high priest.)

Andrew Criddle

All good points, but it seems to me that "the son of" thing looks like a kind of semi-formal literary or religious convention Josephus is using when he refers to high priests (or looking retrospectively at people who later became high priests). (He seems to refer to high priests with the "son of" title a lot.)

[PhilosopherJay]

Hi GakuseiDon,

The statement does not give an example of the criteria Grant is talking about, nor an example of a "pagan" personage whose reality would be put in question by such critieria. Therefore the statement is nothing but rhetorical hyperbole.

What is the evidence that Grant was, in fact, an atheist?


Warmly,

PhilosopherJay

The following comment by atheist historian Michael Grant is quite concise:
...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.

[spin]

Actually, Wikipedia is a source open to whoever knows better than what is written down there on whatever topic. It is not a source based on the authoritative knowledge of such and such distinguished scholars but on the confrontation and rational discussion among different people. (BTW you ought to propose changes in the Wiki article referred by me so as to spare other people being misled.)
(That would mean that I would have to take note of the material in a more substantial way.)

Well, I could agree with this. What I cannot agree with is the case you construe on such a generic statement, and the evidence - in accordance with the statement - you dismiss when it comes to contradict your case.
I gave several other facts that weigh on the matter.

A prefect was a governor in subordinate position.
I have already said that a prefect was a generic military administrator. This could mean a person in charge of military matters in a camp, in charge of food supplies, in charge certain Roman festivals, or the fire brigade. A few were given charge of minor provinces. One was even given charge of three legions in Egypt for historical reasons.

A few prefects were provincial governors.

His superior was either the emperor himself in a straightforward manner - as a “lieutenant,” as Philo say, since being a prefect a military appointee as he was, he was in the relationship of a lieutenant to the commander-in-chief - the emperor himself.
The prefect of Egypt was a special case. Due to historical reasons the position of Egyptian administrator was given to a prefect. This prefect had control of legions, unlike any other prefect. One reason for the prefect's position here was that Egypt was the principal grain source for Rome, it was the praefectus annonae who had control of food supplies, and it was an ex praefectus annonae who usually became the prefect of Egypt.

I'm sure you'll find the internet materials on prefects will tell you this.

Or else his superior was a legate - a commander of one or a few legions. You think the latter to be the only possible situation. This is the point in which you are wrong.
All you need to do is demonstrate your conjecture, not in the special case of Egypt, but in a case like the Judean context.

Assuming ex hypothesis that you were right and Pilate the prefect of Judea was accountable to the Syrian legate and that the Syrian procurator was the prefect’s fellow equestrian, in normal provinces of the imperial description that would be enough. But not in especially troubling provinces. In such provinces, long distances imposed long delays to the supply of financial resources. If the prefect needed money, he might wait for months, and perhaps the business was urgent. In such troublemaking provinces the emperor bestowed on the prefect the powers of a procurator, that is, authority to use the imperial resources for political purposes, while freed him from subjection to a legate by having him be his lieutenant.
You can see that, while Judea and its finances were under the control of Syria, the situation didn't stop Pilate from looting the qorban to pay for an aqueduct. That a prefect could grub for money doesn't make him a procurator.

That was Pilate’s condition according to both Tacitus and Philo. Still Josephus says that prefect Pilate made use of money of the Temple to carry a current of water to Jerusalem, which caused much grievance. That sacred money - for the Jews - was of course imperial property. Yet, according to your own definition of a procurator, do you really think that Pilate would have dared to take the emperor’s money without the approval of a procurator hadn’t he been in such commission?

No fewer than three historians starkly say or at least quite strongly suggest that Pilate was entrusted the powers of a procurator, and you still maintain that he was answerable to the Syrian legate, that a prefect (military chief) was never a procurator (a property manager), and kind of such inventions? You only contradict yourself, for - what happened when Claudius appointed knights and freedmen as procurators? Was the military command (prefecture) taken away from them? Nonsense.
You are not dealing with the problem. All you are trying to do is blur the boundaries between the two positions, one a bookkeeper until 53 CE and the other an administrator.

Really? The sole fact you do have is a text in Tacitus’ Histories, which is apt to a different interpretation, as I showed in my previous post.
I showed that the mention of freedmen in the administration of Judea plainly contradicted your interpretation.

This is the way the mythicist argues. He or she sticks to an inconclusive evidence to deny probative force to no matter how many coincident historical sources.
Rubbish. Philo was not Roman, nor was he well-versed in Roman administration as Tacitus had to be, having been a consul, the highest administrative position in Rome. You are just badly trying to poison the well by your silly talk of mythicists. It will get you nowhere fast.

Tacitus says that Pilate was a procurator in the same paragraph in which he provides us with evidence of Christ’s life?
The text after Tacitus had dealt with Nero refers to Pilate erroneously as a procurator. This is an error that Tacitus, who was well-versed in Roman administration and its history, would have trouble making. You start with the evidence not your interpretation.

That must be a forgery. Philo says that Pilate was the emperor’s lieutenant,...
What does Philo's unclear phrase actually mean?? What was the original phrase in Philo's Greek, so that we can look at the exact meaning of this phrase? Why does someone, a non-Roman, writing in Alexandria, not as up with Roman administration as Tacitus, get dragooned into being an expert on the matter?

... so suggesting that he was independent from the Syrian legate
This is absurd.

But when this tumult was appeased, the Samaritan senate sent an embassy to Vitellius, a man that had been consul, and who was now president of Syria, and accused Pilate of the murder of those that were killed; for that they did not go to Tirathaba in order to revolt from the Romans, but to escape the violence of Pilate. So Vitellius sent Marcellus, a friend of his, to take care of the affairs of Judea, and ordered Pilate to go to Rome, to answer before the emperor to the accusations of the Jews. AJ 18.4.2

Pilate is obvious subordinate to Vitellius. This is not under discussion.

Tacitus’, Philo’s, and Josephus’ testimonies is what history is made of. This all too clearly discloses the mythicist’s purpose, viz. to put the whole historical discourse in disarray so as to have free hand to write it anew, as an anti history.
The material in the Annals 15.44 is what is in question, so your usage of it here is simply inappropriate. The Philo reference is slim and apparently not relevant, except when loaded with your hype. And Josephus clearly disagrees with your attempted use of him.


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How does the documentation compare for other historical figures like say Caesar or Brutus? Or for a comparable religious figure who left behind no personal writings?
First, I cannot reject Jesus as never having existed just because I reject the gospel material as not historical. Second, using the literature attributed directly to Caesar, the "Gallic War", one can use the information to reconstruct the battles and understand how the tactics worked in the context of the topography. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence for the battles referred to. The events certainly happened. The best one can try to do is say that maybe Caesar wasn't involved. That's not very helpful, when other writers say he was. We have a startling amount of physical evidence for Caesar. Brutus less so, but we do have a few coins and a lot of secondary material about him from very close to the era.

I can't really give much evidence for other religious figures of the past. That is not one of my interests. It doesn't come into the category of history as I know it.


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