How certain are we that Jesus was historical?

[Bunyip]

And it stays on ignore for that reason


I tried taking the leash off a few times, I was sorry I did.


he is blatantly trolling a thread he knows I will not respond to him in, for that reason alone.


Says a lot about his character

I LOVE how you can't help but pay me attention. It is almost as hilarious as your comments on the other thread face palming at others because you have misunderstood what plagiarism means.

Here's a tip for you - IGNORE works better if you stop demonstrating that you are reading my comments and responding to them.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Legion

I imagine that your dialogue in class is much easier simply because you have a captive audience - they have to listen to your awful apologetic epics.

They don't have to listen (I never did; why listen when I can just read to pass any exams or write any papers), and there is always a student or two in any sufficiently large class that doesn't. Of course, I haven't taught anything directly related to ancient history in some time. On the other hand, the fact that I frequently refer to ancient philosophy, the histories of the sciences and religion, etc., to students in behavioral neuroscience or cognitive science courses and they engage rather than simply pretend to be listening is something I've taken some small amount of pride in. When one begins teaching classes as an undergrad for high school kids preparing to take a college entrance exam (i.e., it's boring material to take a test nobody wants to take and takes 3 hours out of their day, usually in addition to school but also on weekends), one has to learn to capture attentions. However, the means by which I can do that in class don't translate to a discussion forum for numerous reasons:
1) I'm not teaching
2) You refuse to do more than pay lip service to dialogue and after doing so quickly ignore your own "tenants"
3) You ask for arguments but dismiss them without addressing them
4) You make claims you refuse to substantiate (even when you quite clearly state you will do so)
5) Chatrooms have more in common with a classroom than does this medium.

However, speaking of boredom, do we need to continue to insult my alleged teaching abilities (or lack thereof) in order for you to detract attention away from the fact that you can't actually name the 25 historians you referred to? I could be the worst teacher in the world and it wouldn't make you any less wrong or less able to indicate that you have a basis other than bias for your view here.

I suppose in a way it is rather an implicit or tacit admission. The last time you insulted me for something relevant (not knowing Tacitus) it turned out you
1) Mistakenly quote-mined a translator
2) Referred to a "volume" of Tacitus that he never wrote because you didn't realize your source had collected his books into one
3) Proceeded to defend your "intelligence agency" theory you insult me for addressing despite the fact that the same source tells us you're wrong
4) Managed, somehow, to confuse a number of Latin words including your equating of a slang, derogatory term with a "class" of spies.

I'd respond to the argument you won't make because you can't back it up as I did before, but that time I went out of my way to adhere to your ridiculous understanding of "appeal to authority" by not citing sources and building from the ground up, but you dismissed the entirety of it without actually indicating how any of it was wrong, inaccurate, or somehow failed to demonstrate what I intended.

 

[Bunyip]

They don't have to listen (I never did; why listen when I can just read to pass any exams or write any papers), and there is always a student or two in any sufficiently large class that doesn't. Of course, I haven't taught anything directly related to ancient history in some time. On the other hand, the fact that I frequently refer to ancient philosophy, the histories of the sciences and religion, etc., to students in behavioral neuroscience or cognitive science courses and they engage rather than simply pretend to be listening is something I've taken some small amount of pride in. When one begins teaching classes as an undergrad for high school kids preparing to take a college entrance exam (i.e., it's boring material to take a test nobody wants to take and takes 3 hours out of their day, usually in addition to school but also on weekends), one has to learn to capture attentions. However, the means by which I can do that in class don't translate to a discussion forum for numerous reasons:
1) I'm not teaching
2) You refuse to do more than pay lip service to dialogue and after doing so quickly ignore your own "tenants"
3) You ask for arguments but dismiss them without addressing them
4) You make claims you refuse to substantiate (even when you quite clearly state you will do so)
5) Chatrooms have more in common with a classroom than does this medium.

However, speaking of boredom, do we need to continue to insult my alleged teaching abilities (or lack thereof) in order for you to detract attention away from the fact that you can't actually name the 25 historians you referred to? I could be the worst teacher in the world and it wouldn't make you any less wrong or less able to indicate that you have a basis other than bias for your view here.

I suppose in a way it is rather an implicit or tacit admission. The last time you insulted me for something relevant (not knowing Tacitus) it turned out you
1) Mistakenly quote-mined a translator
2) Referred to a "volume" of Tacitus that he never wrote because you didn't realize your source had collected his books into one
3) Proceeded to defend your "intelligence agency" theory you insult me for addressing despite the fact that the same source tells us you're wrong
4) Managed, somehow, to confuse a number of Latin words including your equating of a slang, derogatory term with a "class" of spies.

I simply showed that Nero is known to have had spies, the rest is you bloviating. There was no quote mine, no misuse of words.

I'd respond to the argument you won't make because you can't back it up as I did before, but that time I went out of my way to adhere to your ridiculous understanding of "appeal to authority" by not citing sources and building from the ground up, but you dismissed the entirety of it without actually indicating how any of it was wrong, inaccurate, or somehow failed to demonstrate what I intended.

That is false, I pointed out each time that your rebuttal is a non-sequitur. A verbose, rambling, patronising and essentially pointless non-sequitur.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

And of course the most important reason why I tend not to be interested in challenging your rebuttals other than to point out that they are generally just non-sequiturs - is that you conceded my point long ago. I am notgenerally interested in refuting irrelevant non-sequiturs.

This thread is asking how certain we can be that Jesus is histprical.
The answer is that we can not be certain. The historicity of Jesus is uncertain.

You generally at this point pretend that nothing we know is certain, and try to spin some claptrap that attempts to reduce all human knowledge to the same degree of uncertainty as the historicity of Jesus - an apologetic approach you clearly know to be unsustainable, because you drop it the moment it is challenged and then move on to bloviating about word meanings.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

is that you conceded my point long ago.

If you mean your point about the historicity of Jesus not being proven, this is a bit like arguments that "evolution is just a theory".

Spoiler: "Boring" details

That is, it mistakes the utter irrelevancy and meaninglessness of "proof" in general and in historical research in particular. Likewise, your references to a rather obscurely fashioned form of inductive logic you apparently did not know the history or purpose of is still (more or less) what historians do. So do scientists, but nobody questions a heliocentric universe because we are using inferences rather than deducing from a set of axioms.

Your point was that Jesus' historicity wasn't "proven" and to the extent it is correct, this is either so inanely trivial a statement it is practically tautological ("red is red"), or a fundamentally flawed understanding of historical (and scientific) research along with what we know of ancient history and the historical Jesus.

You seem to think that our evidence for Jesus doesn't enable us to say with as much certainty as we can for just about anything from antiquity that he was historical. That I don't concede, as I said early on: we have more evidence for Jesus than we have for virtually anybody from the classical, Hellenistic, and early medieval periods. For those for few for whom we have more evidence, their historicity is no more "proven" than is Jesus'.

Either your point is irrelevant or your argument specious and filled with claims you offer various excuses for not backing up.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I simply showed that Nero is known to have had spies, the rest is you bloviating. There was no quote mine

BOOK XVI.

Srcr. I. Nero is amused with hopes of finding great stores of hidden treasure in Africa; one Cesellius Bassus, deluded by his dreams, communicated the secret, and thence the wild prodigality of the prince—IV. The quinquennial games; Nero contends for the victory in song and eloquence; he mounts the public stage; Vespasian (afterwards emperor) in danger from*Nero’s spies*stationed in the playhouse—VI.

Tacitus didn't write this. It's quote-mined from Murphy's Tacitus (see here). Hence your mistake here:

As to a citation - well you have been rather grandly posturing about your expertise in Tacitus to St Frank, but apparently have not read it. Tacitus, volume 3 book XVI specifically refers to Nero's spies.

The "Volume" you refer to is Murphy's 3rd volume, not Tacitus'. That's because Murphy translated Tacitus' complete works into 6 volumes. You cited a translator from the 19th century, but you insulted my knowledge of Tacitus when you didn't even realize you weren't just quoting something Tacitus never wrote, but from an entire volume he never wrote.

That is false, I pointed out each time that your rebuttal is a non-sequitur.

You tried to point out that my explaining of the Latin you couldn't read didn't match up with your quote-mined translator's summary you mistook for something from Tacitus' "volume 3" and then switched tactics and quote-mined Latin terms you don't understand. I made the mistake of playing your game rather than pointing out that your entire argument about Nero learning about Jesus from his "intelligence agency" contradicted what Tacitus actually says (which also contradicts your impetus for inventing such an "intelligence agency" in the first place).

A verbose, rambling, patronising and essentially pointless non-sequitur.

[/QUOTE]

I can guarantee to be polite, accountable and honest

 

[Bunyip]

If you mean your point about the historicity of Jesus not being proven, this is a bit like arguments that "evolution is just a theory".

Spoiler: "Boring" details

That is, it mistakes the utter irrelevancy and meaninglessness of "proof" in general and in historical research in particular. Likewise, your references to a rather obscurely fashioned form of inductive logic you apparently did not know the history or purpose of is still (more or less) what historians do. So do scientists, but nobody questions a heliocentric universe because we are using inferences rather than deducing from a set of axioms.

2
Your point was that Jesus' historicity wasn't "proven" and to the extent it is correct, this is either so inanely trivial a statement it is practically tautological ("red is red"), or a fundamentally flawed understanding of historical (and scientific) research along with what we know of ancient history and the historical Jesus.

Correct. And you agree. The historicity of Jesus is not proven, nor certain. That being the over the top claim I was challenging with this thread. Prophet, Nash8 and Outhouse were all claiming certainty.

You seem to think that our evidence for Jesus doesn't enable us to say with as much certainty as we can for just about anything from antiquity that he was historical.

Correct. We have far better cases for historicity for other figures at that time - Julius Caeser for example. Just because there is no primary evidence for Jesus, does not magically make all of the other people we do have primary evidence for vanish.

That I don't concede, as I said early on: we have more evidence for Jesus than we have for virtually anybody from the classical, Hellenistic, and early medieval periods. For those for few for whom we have more evidence, their historicity is no more "proven" than is Jesus'.

Nonsense, we have a rock solid case for Julius Caeser. His historicity is far better established. There is no comparison.

Either your point is irrelevant or your argument specious and filled with claims you offer various excuses for not backing up.

 

[Bunyip]

Tacitus didn't write this. It's quote-mined from Murphy's Tacitus (see here). Hence your mistake here:



The "Volume" you refer to is Murphy's 3rd volume, not Tacitus'. That's because Murphy translated Tacitus' complete works into 6 volumes. You cited a translator from the 19th century, but you insulted my knowledge of Tacitus when you didn't even realize you weren't just quoting something Tacitus never wrote, but from an entire volume he never wrote.

Murphy TRANSLATED TACITUS. In the original Tacitus book 1, LX he refers to Nero's spies. There was no quote mine, no misrepresentation.

You tried to point out that my explaining of the Latin you couldn't read didn't match up with your quote-mined translator's summary you mistook for something from Tacitus' "volume 3" and then switched tactics and quote-mined Latin terms you don't understand. I made the mistake of playing your game rather than pointing out that your entire argument about Nero learning about Jesus from his "intelligence agency" contradicted what Tacitus actually says (which also contradicts your impetus for inventing such an "intelligence agency" in the first place).

[/QUOTE]

You are being ridiculous. The frumentarii are not imaginary. You are also a liar, I never suggested that Nero learned about Jesus from his spies - a claim you have made before and I have corrected you on. You yet again confuse your own deflections for my argument. My 'entire argument about Nero learning about Jesus from his 'intelligence agency' - took place only in your imagination. I only ever addressed your false claim that there were no spies in Nero's Rome.

 

[oldbadger]

'morning Bunyip....! n(EDIT: Sorry...... Good evening!!! )
I need some more ideas from you....
Earlier you wrote that Mary could possibly have been high born.
Earlier Ingledsva mentioned Temple Virgins, and there was mentioned of 'recognised prostitutes and harlots within some Palestininian circles.
Further, Ingledsva was prepared to consider the existence of 'Vestal Virgins' in a Helenised/Romanised Palestine.

.... OK?

Well, I was initially surprised at your venture 'Mary was high-born', but those following comments could support it all....

Questions:
Could Temple virgins or harlots (or what?) return to respectable society?
Or did they get dumped by society to marry or survive amongst the plebs?
..see where I'm going?
Could Joseph have reached to catch a falling 'high-born'?
Did such a situation have to occur in a city, where such Temple's might be?
Could it therefore fit with and within a place like Seppghoris?
In such a situation would Joseph have needed to remove Mary from that society?
........ Just before or at least after 'the Sepphoris Incident'?
Could that have caused 'a journey' which got expanded by evangelical momentum?
Ha! Since there could have been living people who knew about Jesus's infancy, could the C stories have been developed to defend his early years?


I'm sorry to push in, but these offerings, when placed side by side, cause me to be interested.....

 

[Bunyip]

OldBadger

Wonderful!

The best evidence (although it is little more than a hint) for the connection of Mary to the temple virgins is in that they share the same basic attributes and characteristics -purity, chastity, love etc.

Other than that in terms of a biography for Mary (as you clearly know) we have nothing.

My evidence for her being high born is the following:
Were Joseph and Mary from the lowest classes nobody would give a damn if she was pregnant or not when they hooked up.
Mary and Joseph were mobile, the lowest classes were not.
Jesus is clearly the beneficiary of a relatively sophisticated education.
Jesus would need to come from a good family to validate a claim to the throne of David (matriarchal lineage being crucial to Judaeism).

As to Sephoris, it is a likely meeting place given that Nazareth did not yet exist as a town.

(back later, must run)

 

[oldbadger]

OldBadger

Wonderful!

The best evidence (although it is little more than a hint) for the connection of Mary to the temple virgins is in that they share the same basic attributes and characteristics -purity, chastity, love etc.

Other than that in terms of a biography for Mary (as you clearly know) we have nothing.

My evidence for her being high born is the following:

Mary and Joseph were mobile, the lowest classes were not.
Jesus is clearly the beneficiary of a relatively sophisticated education.
Jesus would need to come from a good family to validate a claim to the throne of David (matriarchal lineage being crucial to Judaeism.

(back later, must run)

That is bloody good.
Thankyou. I've got something to think about, today.....

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Murphy TRANSLATED TACITUS.

You, however, didn't quote from his translation. You quoted from Murphy's summary of what was to come. This:

BOOK XVI.

Srcr. I. Nero is amused with hopes of finding great stores of hidden treasure in Africa; one Cesellius Bassus, deluded by his dreams, communicated the secret, and thence the wild prodigality of the prince—IV. The quinquennial games; Nero contends for the victory in song and eloquence; he mounts the public stage; Vespasian (afterwards emperor) in danger from*Nero’s spies*stationed in the playhouse—VI.

doesn't exist in Tacitus. It was written by Murphy to inform his readers. Also, according to you, it's an appeal to authority and thus fallacious. What it is not is this:

I gave you a citation in Tacitus where he specifically refers to Nero's spies

You gave me something Tacitus didn't write.

In the original Tacitus book 1, LX he refers to Nero's spies. There was no quote mine, no misrepresentation.

Book I of what? In Book one of the Annales (whence comes your misquote) Nero isn't even mentioned in LX (let alone any spies). However, if you have another "Book I" of some work by Tacitus rather than relying on quote-mined 19th century translators you can't seem to manage to line up with anything Tacitus actually wrote, please do.

The frumentarii are not imaginary.

No, just not an "intelligence agency" and utterly irrelevant to any possible argument you could have made concerning Nero's knowledge:

The reality is that the majority of people simply didn't even know about the story - it was not popularised until much later.

Legion

I said:"That doesn't mean that it was common knowledge"

You reply: "Because Nero had some great intelligence agency as yet unknown to historians? How, do you imagine, that he learned of it?"

Of course Nero had an extensive intelligence agency, and it is well known to historians. He was the Emperor, he had a far greater access to information than the average person. All of the Emperors had extensive networks of spies - and their existence is well documented.

And best yet, Tacitus specifically states that "To dispel the gossip Nero therefore found culprits on whom he inflicted the most exotic punishments. These were people hated for their shameful offences whom the common people called Christians"

Legion, that is just painfully, heartbreakingly stupid. No I do not need to show evidence that the Jesus story was not well known at the time - that is just a ridiculous objection. If you need a citation for that, you are beyond help.

So Tacitus tells us Nero was familiar with the Christians because everybody was: they were "hated" by "the common people". Among other responses, you stated that the idea that the Jesus story was not well known at that time was "painfully, heartbreakingly stupid" and responded to my sarcastic claim about Nero's extensive spy network with a series of posts from the one in which you insult my knowledge of Tacitus by quoting the translator and citing a volume Tacitus didn't write to you current claim that you droned on and on about word in Latin you can't read and spies but yet:

never suggested that Nero learned about Jesus from his spies

As long as we're playing semantic games, the fact that you did not say "Nero learned about Jesus from his spies" doesn't mean you didn't suggest this. You clearly suggested it. I argued that as the Emperor knew before the gospels were even written this was evidence of widespread knowledge, you called that "painfully, heartbreakingly stupid", I rhetorically and sarcastically asked if whether he learned about Jesus from his extensive spy network and you didn't even bother to quote me: you yourself rephrased what I said and responded to m claim by saying that of course Nero had such a network.

So either your desire to derail your own thread with trivial matters concerning the semantics of Latin terms and the dynamics of socio-cultural, military, and political dynamics in 1st century Rome that you weren't suggesting this drove you to misquote and misattribute lines to Tacitus and claim a derogatory slang use of a word referred to a class of "spies", or you were claiming this was how Nero was aware despite the fact that there was no common knowledge. Either way, Tacitus informs us that Nero was aware of what was quite literally common knowledge.

I only ever addressed your false claim that there were no spies in Nero's Rome.

I said that there was no spy network and that there wasn't even a word for "spy" in Latin. To refute this, you tried (and failed) to cite a context-specific use of a word that isn't equivalent with spy, referred to a group of people who supplied corn to the military and then were used in various capacities (including spying) but weren't spies, and then equated slang usage with an official spy class. Never did you indicate that there was any "intelligence network" you claimed, nor even that the various mistakes you made concerning the way certain persons were commonly asked to spy among other duties existed during Nero's day such that any of these "classes of spies" could make your statement true.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

Nero had spies Legion. No degree of bloviation will change that - nor will it change the fact that you are attacking your own strawman as opposed to anything I have claimed.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Correct.

In the portion you quoted and responded "Correct." to, I provided details as to your misuse and abuse of logic. Were you agreeing these were correct?

And you agree. The historicity of Jesus is not proven, nor certain.

As long as you're going to play games, then no, I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that it is meaningless to say that the historicity of Jesus is not proven, meaningless to ask if it is proven, and indicative of a fundamentally flawed understanding of research methods in general. As long as you continue to insist the statement "the historicity of Jesus is not proven" means more than "red is red", then my answer to whether or not the historicity of Jesus is proven is to say that this is a meaningless question and has no honest answer other than that it is meaningless.

That being the over the top claim I was challenging with this thread. Prophet, Nash8 and Outhouse were all claiming certainty.

Which is different than proof and is always contextually and conceptually-laden. One can easily refer to Descartes and even argue that his argument (that the one thing that cannot be questioned is one's own existence, as to question whether "I" exist requires an "I" to ask such a question). Or one can choose to communicate meaningfully where certainty means "for all intents and purposes". Here we are as certain as it gets, so being endowed with language as a means to communicate we use it. There is no plausible way to explain our evidence without an historical Jesus. If you don't want to call this certain because technically it isn't, you'll find that road to be a slippery slope.

Correct. We have far better cases for historicity for other figures at that time - Julius Caeser for example.

So far that's been your only example. What are the others and why? What are your criteria? How are you factoring in textual criticism and manuscript variants/attestation? How are you factoring in pseudepigrapha? In essence, how are you doing anything other than making claims about our evidence you can't substantiate (as previously shown) because you aren't actually aware of the nature of the evidence historians of this period use.

Just because there is no primary evidence for Jesus, does not magically make all of the other people we do have primary evidence for vanish.

How do you know we have primary evidence for any of them? On this very thread the historicity of Paul has been questioned, despite the fact that we are limited to one contemporary source outside of the primary evidence. Two of the books I bought for my senior thesis on epistemic modality in Attic Greek are Greek Fictional Letters and the Cambridge "green and yellow" Greek and Latin Letters: An Anthology. I thus have letters from Socrates, Philostratus, Euripides, Hippocrates, etc. Yet, somehow, these are not counted as primary evidence. At the beginning of my Latin text & commentary Julius Caesar: The Civil Wars the editor notes "All surviving manuscripts o the Bellum Civile share a good deal of textual corruption. They also lack the beginning of the work and have some other lacunae in common. It is certain therefore that all are derived from a single archetype, and that this archetype did not contain either a complete or a very reliable text. So how do we know Caesar even wrote it?

When you aren't familiar with basic methods used to determine questions of history in antiquity, simply asserting we have reasons to believe even Julius Caesar is historical while relying on popular and internet sources for your information on the historical Jesus simply places you in the position of having the same level of skepticism thrown back at you without the means to answer. The last time, you referred to what "historians" think about the evidence for Julius Caesar.

Nonsense, we have a rock solid case for Julius Caeser.

We have more archaeological evidence for Greco-Roman deities than Caesar, Caesar was said to be a god, we have pathetic manuscripts that have survived in mostly in copies of obviously dubious condition about a 1,000 years after they were said to have written, and we know how common forgery and pseudoepigraph were as well as the fact that Roman historians like Livy spoke of emperors of Rome who were mythical like the founders Romulus and Remus. All the supposedly historical accounts about Caesar contain myth, legend, rumor, and more. That which Caesar supposedly wrote was military propaganda that any general could have written and signed using the name Caesar because "Caesar" was, like "Christ", a kind of title later emperors used to bolster their authority but no more referred to any real, historical Julius Caesar than did the stories of Rome's foundational connection to Troy.

It's very easy to assume what that historians know what they are doing when convenient and then to ignore them utterly when you wish. It's a lot harder when you have to supply the reasons they have for dismissing the evidence they do and accepting that which they do when you haven't a clue regarding their criteria (including what "contemporary evidence" means).

His historicity is far better established. There is no comparison.

1) There is a comparison. He's one of the few for which we have vast evidence.
2) If there were no comparison, stop making one. Who else do you have on your list (or is this like the list of 25 as-yet unrevealed historians you referred to)?
3) You haven't shown any indication you are aware of any of the research over the past 300 years of probably the most critically researched person in history. You haven't even shown to be capable of recognizing when you are quoting an ancient author vs. the translator's introduction to a chapter of a work you still haven't managed to actually cite. What do you now of how historicity is established other than a form of inductive reasoning the name of which was coined to describe the validity and soundness of scientific inquiry yet which you use as some kind of indication of the failings of historical argument?
4) You reject as spurious the central means for all academic progress: appeal to the arguments made in scholarship that has passed initial review just to be published and faced the real review when made public to be criticized by any and all peers in any and all related fields. So, if you wish to say something about our evidence for Caesar, I hope you've read the original surviving manuscripts, seen every piece of archaeological evidence, and done everything so that you don't fall prey to your own fallacious trap.

Except you already did that when you cited Murphy. You just did it so poorly you ended up not just relying on his translation but his own words you claimed were from Tacitus.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

The case for the historicity of Julius Ceaser is rock solid, you are being absurd. You are inferring that all we have for him is his books - which is ridiculous.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Nero had spies Legion.

That wasn't your claim:

Of course Nero had an extensive intelligence agency, and it is well known to historians. He was the Emperor, he had a far greater access to information than the average person. All of the Emperors had extensive networks of spies - and their existence is well documented.

First, the above involves an appeal to authority. The difference between you and me here is that when I say something about historical scholarship I can actually cite historical scholarship.
Second, you haven't begun to indicate that this is true. If we rely on the best case scenario for you, then one of the groups you indicate is roughly comparable to a spy network but not until after Nero, was disbanded, and was not the Emperor's per se (which was why it was disbanded).
Third, had you not mistakenly quoted a translator and fail to even get the actual citation right, you'd end up with a passage that doesn't have a word for spies but uses adjective to describe implied persons (not even a word that could be used to mean "spy" or "spies").

Backing away from the claim you actually made (as well as misrepresenting why) you still haven't provided evidence to support the modest substitute.
So, if "Nero had spies" then show me the evidence. And if you finally manage to figure out which work of Tacitus you want to quote and from where, any reliance on a translation is an appeal to the translator's authority (which, according to you, is a fallacy). For the moment I'll waive the fact that just by reading a Latin edition you're appealing to far more authority you could be aware of (although your edition should have a critical apparatus to give you some indication were you capable of using such a tool). You can just translate the Latin yourself and indicate why it supports that Nero not only had spies (which wasn't your claim) but that these are "well-documented" and "well known to historians".

No degree of bloviation will change that

Luckily, even were I wrong, it couldn't matter less. You brought up your "extensive intelligence agency" to explain why Nero knew about Jesus. Tacitus refutes what you said even before you proposed so ridiculous a reason.

anything I have claimed.

I can't go through all of your contradictory claims in one post and I've done so enough time that anybody with any intellectual integrity would admit you've directly and obviously contradicted yourself. However, I need only point that your assertion "Nero had spies" is completely different from your original claim and that you haven't provided evidence for either. You've simply quoted a translator's commentary and incorrectly cited works of Tacitus that don't exist.

 

[Bunyip]

That wasn't your claim:

That WAS my claim Legion - everything after that is your own invention.

First, the above involves an appeal to authority. The difference between you and me here is that when I say something about historical scholarship I can actually cite historical scholarship.
Second, you haven't begun to indicate that this is true. If we rely on the best case scenario for you, then one of the groups you indicate is roughly comparable to a spy network but not until after Nero, was disbanded, and was not the Emperor's per se (which was why it was disbanded).
Third, had you not mistakenly quoted a translator and fail to even get the actual citation right, you'd end up with a passage that doesn't have a word for spies but uses adjective to describe rimplied persons (not even a word that could be used to mean "spy" or "spies").

Backing away from the claim you actually made (as well as misrepresenting why) you still haven't provided evidence to support the modest substitute.
So, if "Nero had spies" then show me the evidence. And if you finally manage to figure out which work of Tacitus you want to quote and from where, any reliance on a translation is an appeal to the translator's authority (which, according to you, is a fallacy). For the moment I'll waive the fact that just by reading a Latin edition you're appealing to far more authority you could be aware of (although your edition should have a critical apparatus to give you some indication were you capable of using such a tool). You can just translate the Latin yourself and indicate why it supports that Nero not only had spies (which wasn't your claim) but that these are "well-documented" and "well known to historians".


Luckily, even were I wrong, it couldn't matter less. You brought up your "extensive intelligence agency" to explain why Nero knew about Jesus.

Is that the tenth time you have made that same false allegation? And yes, Nero like all of the emperors had extensive intelligence gathering agencies.

Tacitus refutes what you said even before you proposed so ridiculous a reason.
I can't go through all of your contradictory claims in one post and I've done so enough time that anybody with any intellectual integrity would admit you've directly and obviously contradicted yourself. However, I need only point that your assertion "Nero had spies" is completely different from your original claim and that you haven't provided evidence for either. You've simply quoted a translator's commentary and incorrectly cited works of Tacitus that don't exist.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Legion

The case for the historicity of Julius Ceaser is rock solid

Great. Show it. I raised specific issues that you should be able to answer without appealing to authority (a.k.a., adhering to the methods used by scholars before peer-review existed and upon which all of academia is built that you equate with a fallacy). Your response to the challenges to our evidence is to say that it is rock solid. Of course, that's what others have continually said about Jesus and you haven't let that stand.

Either you are applying a double standard, or you can answer my questions. Nothing of what I said about our evidence for Julius Caesar was untrue, all that I suggested has more basis than your absurd claims about Paul or Nero's "extensive intelligence agency", and so you should be able to address these rather than rely on dogma.

You are inferring that all we have for him is his books

We have more archaeological evidence for Greco-Roman deities than Caesar

What part of that suggests that I inferred all we have for him texts?

All the supposedly historical accounts about Caesar contain myth, legend, rumor, and more. That which Caesar supposedly wrote was military propaganda...

How did this suggest I inferred we only have "his books"? I specifically differentiated between what he wrote and what was written about him.

If you're going to dismiss my arguments because you are unable to address them, at least dismiss those I actually make.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

And yes, Nero like all of the emperors had extensive intelligence gathering agencies.

Oh GOODIE! Were back with this particular insanity. Now that I no longer have to depend on your inability to read Latin or properly quote (or cite) an ancient author, where is the evidence for Nero's "extensive intelligence gathering agencies" AND that of all of the emperors?

And this time, unless you're willing to admit that citing scholarship isn't a fallacy, use primary source material.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion

Sure. We have solid direct archeological evidence for Ceaser, Rome has statues, engravings, coins corroboration from dozens of sources - there would he thousands of articles of evidence.
You counter with the bizarre claim that we have more evidence of deities - which is laughable.