did jesus exist?

[St Giordano Bruno]

Probably did, albeit the spelling or pronunciation would be different such as Yeshua or something like that

 

[Oberon]

Stop with the red herrings already and admit it, Acts is not a reliable history.

Let's play your game and see what happens when we look at snippets from so called "reliable" histories:

From Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras- It is commonly spoken of tat Pythagoras showed his golden thigh to Abaris the Hyperborean after the latter had conjectured that he was Hyperborean Apollo, whose priest he was, thus confirming the truth of it. It is also known that when a ship was putting in to port and his friends were praying that its cargo should be theirs Pythagoras said, "Then you will have a corpse," and the ship duly arrived with a corpse on board.

Oh my a god man making miracle predictions!? In a historical work no less. Well thank goodness we have REAL historians like Thucydides to look at. Only, occasionally thucydides way of writing "natural" history is just to take a myth like the one about the ghost of Pausanias (see Euripides for one version of the myth) and simply report it as history by taking out the ghost part (Thucydides 1.134). As a matter of fact, it seems fairly common for historians to simply make myth into history by removing the more fantastical elements of the myth. Diodorus takes the well known myth of the witch Medea and tells the story again as if it were history. Of course, not all historians felt the need to even bother to take out the myth. I guess Herodotus felt it must have been history: "Everybody used to call [the Medes] Arians, but after Colchian Media arrived among these Ariens from Athens, they too changed their names." Hmmm, I guess Herodotus couldn't really tell here what was myth and what was history. Which explains his little story here "The storm continued for three days. At last the mages made sacrifices to the dead and sang an incantation to ppease the wind with the help of sorcerers. They also sacrificed to Thetis and the Nereids and stopped it [the storm] on the third day." Herodotus also makes clear that it was the magic that stopped the storm, because if it wasn't for the magic, the storm would have continued for another whole day. Very historical.

I don't want to give the impression that the romans were much better, of course. Pliny somehow thinks that part of natural history means explaining magic. (30.1-20).

And as long as we're dealing with miracle workers, who can forget the historian Philostratus, who wrote the following:
In the midst of these discussions the messenger came before the sages bringing some Indians who were asking for deliverance. He brought in a woman who was making supplication on behalf of her son, whom she said was sixteen years old, but had been possessed for two years. The character of the demon was that of a dissembler and liar. One of the sages asked her what her reason was for saying this, and she said, “My son is very attractive and the demon is in love with him, and so will not allow him to keep his mind, or to go to school or to archery class, or even to be at home, but it drives him out to the desert. The boy does not even have his own voice, but he speaks in a deep and hollow voice, like a man. He looks with eyes other than his own. I weep about this and rend my cheeks and chide him as far as it is reasonable to do so, but he does not know me. So I decided to make my way here. Indeed I decided to do this last year, but the demon revealed himself, using my child as a medium, and said that he was the ghost of a man who had once died in war. On death he had been in love with his wife, but when his wife insulted their bed by marrying another man on the third day after his death, he came to hate love for women and so had transferred himself and his affections into this boy. He promised, if I did not slander him to you, that he would bestow many good and fine qualities on the boy. I put up with this for a while, but he has been fobbing me off for a long time and he is now in sole charge of my house. He has no moderate or honest intentions.” The sage asked again if the boy was nearby. She said he was not, although she had done much to get him to come. “But the demon threatens me with cliff-tops and deep pits and says he will kill my son, if I bring him to justice here.” “Don’t worry,” said the sage, “for he will not kill him when he has read this.” With this he drew a letter from his robe and gave it to the woman. The letter was addressed to the ghost and contained terrifying threats.
A lame man came too. He was now thirty years old, and an accomplished hunter of lions. A lion had jumped on him and he had damaged his hip in the fall, with the result that he walked with a limp. Their hands massaged his buttock, and the young man set off again with a straight gait. Another man had lost his eyes and went off with all the light restored to them. Another man had lost the strength in his hand, but went off with full control over it. A woman had had seven difficult labors. Her husband made a petition on her behalf and she was cured in the following way. He instructed the husband, whenever his wife was giving birth, to take a live hare in his robe into the room in which the birth was taking place. He was to walk round her and at the same time release the hare. In this case the womb would be passed out together with the child, unless the hare was immediately taken outside. "

And we can go on and on. Take the historian Pausanias (6.6.7)-
Now Euthymus came to Temesa, and it happened that the customary offering was being made to the ghost at that time. He inquired into the rites they were performing and conceived the desire to enter the temple and take a look at the virgin. When he saw her, his first reaction was pity for her, his second desire. The girl swore that she would marry him if he saved her, so Euthymus made his preparations and waited for the demon to arrive. He defeated the Hero in a battle, and (since he had driven it from the land) it disappeared and dove into the sea.

Sounds like history, right? I mean demons, ghosts. That's history, no?

I can add more if you wish

 

[outhouse]

theres a reason they call it the holy bible

so many holes its like a net

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You can quote examples until you are blue in the face. I just gave you several of my own. Formal history existed on a continuum. Some historians were pretty good even by today's standards. Others were not. In fact, your good friend Carrier, who is fine with thinking of the gospels as biographies, thinks the whole genre of biography in the greco-roman world was basically a fail as far as historical value is concerned.

Wow. That's amazing.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

theres a reason they call it the holy bible

so many holes its like a net

... and your spam is rock solid...

 

[dogsgod]

Wow. That's amazing.

Coming from Oberon, about as amazing as it is accurate.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Coming from Oberon, about as amazing as it is accurate.

You've accused him of using a strawman and a red herring. These accusations were mostly because of your incompetence.

And here we have an indisputable ad homenim.

 

[dogsgod]

You've accused him of using a strawman and a red herring. These accusations were mostly because of your incompetence.

His use of straw man arguments have nothing to do with me.

And here we have an indisputable ad homenim.

Did oberon quote Carrier? What's amazing about putting words in Carriers mouth? I question his accuracy, that's hardly an ad homenim.

 

[outhouse]

my "spam" makes every bit as good a argument as a saviour stolen from previous pagan religions that mirror christianity which is based on copies OF copies of unknown authors that didnt have a first hand account of a myth.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

my "spam" makes every bit as good a argument as a saviour stolen from previous pagan religions that mirror christianity which is based on copies OF copies of unknown authors that didnt have a first hand account of a myth.

hahah

So your ignorant and incompetent "understanding" of Christianity justifies your theft?

 

[Oberon]

Some apologists attempt to dig themselves out of this problem by claiming that there lived no capable historians during that period, or due to the lack of education of the people with a writing capacity, or even sillier, the scarcity of paper gave reason why no one recorded their "savior." But the area in and surrounding Jerusalem served, in fact, as the center of education and record keeping for the Jewish people. The Romans, of course, also kept many records. Moreover, the gospels mention scribes many times, not only as followers of Jesus but the scribes connected with the high priests. And as for historians, there lived plenty at the time who had the capacity and capability to record, not only insignificant gossip, but significant events, especially from a religious sect who drew so much popular attention through an allegedly famous and infamous Jesus.

You should spend a lot more time familiarizing yourself with the nature of the evidence we have for most historical persons. We know that you haven't read scholarship on the historical Jesus. But how about the classical period and clasical scholarship? Care to share what scholarship you have read in this area? I mean, you are making judgments about ancient history. Surely these are made with at least a passing familiarity of academic works in this area.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You should spend a lot more time familiarizing yourself with the nature of the evidence we have for most historical persons. We know that you haven't read scholarship on the historical Jesus. But how about the classical period and clasical scholarship? Care to share what scholarship you have read in this area? I mean, you are making judgments about ancient history. Surely these are made with at least a passing familiarity of academic works in this area.

I don't think that any of this is in a list online with no explanation.

 

[outhouse]

hahah

So your ignorant and incompetent "understanding" of Christianity justifies your theft?

christians blatently stole there religion from so many sources it amazes me in modern times that so many people have fallen for the lies put forth

 

[outhouse]

You should spend a lot more time familiarizing yourself with the nature of the evidence we have for most historical persons. We know that you haven't read scholarship on the historical Jesus. But how about the classical period and clasical scholarship? Care to share what scholarship you have read in this area? I mean, you are making judgments about ancient history. Surely these are made with at least a passing familiarity of academic works in this area.

scholarship based on copied of copies makes you special how?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

scholarship based on copied of copies makes you special how?

:biglaugh:

 

[Oberon]

scholarship based on copied of copies makes you special how?

Since all the classical texts are copies of copies (and the NT is the best textually attested collection of the ancient world) are you discounting all of ancient history? Most classical authors are attested by manuscripts dating to the middle ages. They all have errors. Is your view that we can't know much of anything from classical texts (caesar, thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, etc)?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Since all the classical texts are copies of copies (and the NT is the best textually attested collection of the ancient world) are you discounting all of ancient history? Most classical authors are attested my manuscripts dating to the middle ages. They all have errors. Is your view that we can't know much of anything from classical texts (caesar, thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, etc)?

You're forgetting something...

 

[Oberon]

You're forgetting something...

Again? Must be old age. What is it this time?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Again? Must be old age. What is it this time?

You know about Diogenes of Oenoanda. He had his teachings inscribed in stone. As far as I know, all of the fragments are original.

That's one way to do it, huh?

Also, I suspect that one or two philosophers are preserved in papyri that could be original.

 

[Oberon]

You know about Diogenes of Oenoanda. He had his teachings inscribed in stone. As far as I know, all of the fragments are original.

And of course there's a whole lot we could learn from archaeology and inscriptions.

Also, I suspect that one or two philosophers are preserved in papyri that could be original.

It's possible, but I don't know. I had to look at a lot of papyri fragments for a linguistics project I did, and I don't recall any, but that doesn't mean much.