Was Jesus real?

[nash8]

As has been pointed out - there are no documents about Jesus from his time.


Most of the Talmudic passages are about Ben Stada.

The Talmudic passages say the man was stoned by the Jewish courts - not killed by the Romans as the Bible says.

We also know there are multiple people with the same name being written about over time and from different areas.

These say the mother's husband was Pappos Ben Yehudah, a name known in other Talmudic literature. He was born after the "Jesus" of the Bible would have died. Pappos died in 134.

It also says this "Miriam megadla nashaia" was sneaking around and got pregnant by her lover Pandira.

*

A second one mentions a "Yeshu" who practiced magic and led the Israelites astray.

This "Yeshu" also had five followers - Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah. They were executed along with him.

It also mentions this event happend in the time of King John Hyrcanus. It is believed to have happened about 93 BCE, and he was dead by 91 BCE. These Rabbis were able to return by 80 BCE.

As you can see when you look closely at these passages - AS OTHERS HAVE SAID - they are OBVIOUSLY not about the Bible Jesus.
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But can you say with 100% assurance that either of those people are who the Bible makes reference to, with much exaggeration and storytelling prowess. I'm not trying to argue that Jesus in the Bible doesn't include myth, exaggeration, and other devices. What I'm saying is there is plenty of circumstancial evidence that demonstrates that the Bible very possibly could have been based on the life of a living person named Yeshua, or maybe even many people named Yeshua, so would these people not be the Jesus of the Bible, since the story was based on them?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

But can you say with 100% assurance that either of those people are who the Bible makes reference to, with much exaggeration and storytelling prowess. I'm not trying to argue that Jesus in the Bible doesn't include myth, exaggeration, and other devices. What I'm saying is there is plenty of circumstancial evidence that demonstrates that the Bible very possibly could have been based on the life of a living person named Yeshua, or maybe even many people named Yeshua, so would these people not be the Jesus of the Bible, since the story was based on them?

The time frame is the part that rules them out. There were already writings about the Bible Jesus before the men in question were alive.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

As has been pointed out - there are no documents about Jesus from his time.

That's true of virtually everyone we know of in the ancient world. What evidence do we have that Nero existed? Or Diogenes the Cynic? or Diogenes of Appolonia? Or Apollonius of Tyana? Or Pythagoras? Or Apollodorus of Alexandria? Or Rufus of Ephesus?

Richard carrier talks about some first century people in his dissertation. One is Pedanius of Dioscorides. First, other historians have argued, unlike Carrier, that this individual is the same one we know of as Dioscurides Phacus. Second, what sources does Carrier use here? Two: the Dictionary of Scientific Biography and The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Why? Because all the information we have on this individual is passing references in much later works.

This is also true of Carrier's sources for the first century individual Archigenes of Apamea, the abovementioned Rufus of Ephesus, Scribonius Largus, Claudius Agathinus, and every other first century person Carrier talks about.

As you can see when you look closely at these passages - AS OTHERS HAVE SAID - they are OBVIOUSLY not about the Bible Jesus.

Obviously not. Why? For the same reasons that those who argued, contra Carrier, that the few vague references to Pedanius of Dioscorides and Dioscurides Phacus are about the same person.

 

[Windwalker]

Um... you are aware that Jesus didn't write anything at all? If Jesus had written the gospels, I could perhaps understand your stance, but he didn't. It's as if we're arguing over the historicity of Sherlock Holmes and you are holding that Arthur Conan Doyle was, in fact, Sherlock Holmes... and so Holmes did exist historically.

To me, that doesn't seem like a sound position.

I'm completely aware that Jesus never wrote anything. You should re-read what I wrote. Perhaps you missed the point?

Sure. Or think of it like this: You've never in your life seen pink elephants dancing in your driveway, so you have no knowledge of what that looks like to those who have seen the elephants. And no amount of analyzing it will impart the knowledge that the elephants are there. You must enter into the experience and participate in the elephant-watching.

I actually thought you were up to this discussion. I was wrong.

When you pull out this stuff, you're arguing with someone else. Not me.

Thanks for the distraction.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I don't care about your so called truth. Now you are reduced once again to casting aspersions at those that don't buy into your logical fallacies and baseless assumptions about what you think you can know about this Jesus.

What fallacies? You stated we shouldn't need massive amounts of scholarship. I agree. That's because if you read a book about Cicero, and came across the name Divitiacus of the Aedui (the druid), you wouldn't wonder why Caesar, who talks about the same individual and who describes druids, never refers to him as a druid. You wouldn't wonder about what textual critical problems we have with both Caesar and Cicero's works (FYI- we have almost no manuscripts of either and they are from the medieval period or later). You wouldn't claim that druids were really basically invented by Greco-Roman authors and point to the contradicting claims about druids in general and specific druids.

Why? Because you'd trust in the expertise of the author. Why do you believe that Josephus didn't refer to Jesus' brother? Because you've trusted what other people have said about textual criticism, manuscript evidence, the Greek, and so forth. It's not because you've actually read all of what Josephus wrote, studied textual criticism, or do anything that would enable you to refute the assertion that the line is not interpolated other than to copy what others have said.

More name calling

What name did I call you?

you sound like a sociopath venting at those that don't believe what you believe to be the truth.

Quite apart from the problems about what a sociopath should sound like, my "venting" is about unsubstantiated claims made by people who, like you, have read almost nothing on a subject yet dogmatically defend a position and refuse to try to assess its validity through research. And selectively picking out sources that that affirm what you want to believe in the first place isn't research. It's ideology.

Ad hominems are all you got

When I refer to your knowledge of a subject and its source, I'm not making an argument ad hominem (also, fyi, the plural of hominem is homines):

"The simplest form of the ad hominem, or personal attack, argument is the direct or personal type, often called the abusive ad hominem argument in logic textbooks. In this type of argument, a is the proponent of an argument that has been put forward. The premise that is alleged is that a is a person of bad character. What is normally cited is some aspect of a’s character as a person, and often, character for veracity is the focus of the attack. For example, the allegation may be, “He is a liar!” The attack is directed to destroying the person’s credibility, so that his argument is discounted or reduced in plausibility because of the reduction in credibility of the arguer. Thus this type of attack is particularly effective where a person’s argument depends on his presumed honesty or good character for its plausibility." pp. 122-123 of

Walton, D. (2006). Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation (from the series Critical Reasoning and Argumentation; Cambridge University Press).

Describing someone as "like a sociopath" without giving any evidence to support such a claim is an argument ad hominem. Describing someone as "like a fundamentalist Christian" after given reasons for the analogy is not. When I attack your lack of credibility based upon your familiarity with historical research, knowledge a historian's methods, etc., that isn't an ad hominem argument. I'm not attacking your character but y

it's all you have ever had

I devoted multiple posts just one line in Paul for you using an analysis of the Greek. I've addressed this line for others using everything from linguistics to the use of Greek kinship terminology in letters during the Hellenistic period. I've given you plenty of references. I've actually done quite a bit specifically for or to address your claims.

However, when one is trying to demonstrate something to someone who will misuse the fallacy "argument from authority" to defend a position they have so that they need not actually do any research on the topic and still make claims about the research they haven't read, there's not much one can do. Dogma is dogma.

I've read enough to know

That's a claim. What have you read? You accuse me of having nothing to support my position, and right here you claim that you have read enough to know why I supposedly can't. Can you substantiate this claim? What have you read that gives you this knowledge? If you can't even back up this claim, then you clearly can't have read enough to assert anything about what can or can't be known concerning the historicity of Jesus.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

I actually thought you were up to this discussion. I was wrong.

When you pull out this stuff, you're arguing with someone else. Not me.

Thanks for the distraction.

That's your special enlightenment talking, I guess.

I think that a person who has experienced special knowledge will reflect that wisdom in his behavior. That's how it seems to me.

 

[Ingledsva]

As has been pointed out - there are no documents about Jesus from his time.


Most of the Talmudic passages are about Ben Stada.

The Talmudic passages say the man was stoned by the Jewish courts - not killed by the Romans as the Bible says.

We also know there are multiple people with the same name being written about over time and from different areas.

These say the mother's husband was Pappos Ben Yehudah, a name known in other Talmudic literature. He was born after the "Jesus" of the Bible would have died. Pappos died in 134.

It also says this "Miriam megadla nashaia" was sneaking around and got pregnant by her lover Pandira.

*

A second one mentions a "Yeshu" who practiced magic and led the Israelites astray.

This "Yeshu" also had five followers - Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah. They were executed along with him.

It also mentions this event happend in the time of King John Hyrcanus. It is believed to have happened about 93 BCE, and he was dead by 91 BCE. These Rabbis were able to return by 80 BCE.

As you can see when you look closely at these passages - AS OTHERS HAVE SAID - they are OBVIOUSLY not about the Bible Jesus.

But can you say with 100% assurance that either of those people are who the Bible makes reference to, with much exaggeration and storytelling prowess. I'm not trying to argue that Jesus in the Bible doesn't include myth, exaggeration, and other devices. What I'm saying is there is plenty of circumstancial evidence that demonstrates that the Bible very possibly could have been based on the life of a living person named Yeshua, or maybe even many people named Yeshua, so would these people not be the Jesus of the Bible, since the story was based on them?

Look at the dates. Neither of these could have been the Biblical Jesus.

The first could of course, be strung together legend, etc, put to paper for some reason, - as the date is 134 AD. The other though took place around 93 BCE.

Indeed, there could have been a real person named Iesous, but these verses are not actually about him. And even if there was a real person - that would not make any of the supernatural info in the Bible true.

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[Ingledsva]

That's true of virtually everyone we know of in the ancient world. What evidence do we have that Nero existed? Or Diogenes the Cynic? or Diogenes of Appolonia? Or Apollonius of Tyana? Or Pythagoras? Or Apollodorus of Alexandria? Or Rufus of Ephesus?

Richard carrier talks about some first century people in his dissertation. One is Pedanius of Dioscorides. First, other historians have argued, unlike Carrier, that this individual is the same one we know of as Dioscurides Phacus. Second, what sources does Carrier use here? Two: the Dictionary of Scientific Biography and The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Why? Because all the information we have on this individual is passing references in much later works.

This is also true of Carrier's sources for the first century individual Archigenes of Apamea, the abovementioned Rufus of Ephesus, Scribonius Largus, Claudius Agathinus, and every other first century person Carrier talks about.



Obviously not. Why? For the same reasons that those who argued, contra Carrier, that the few vague references to Pedanius of Dioscorides and Dioscurides Phacus are about the same person.

We have a lot of info about Nero from documents sent back and forth, history of the Caesars, minted coins, art, etc.

His real name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, born Dec. 15 in 37 A.D.. He was the son of Agrippina the Younger. He was adopted by Claudius, and his name changed to Nero Claudius Caesar. He became Emperor in 54 A.D.
As for the other - did you look at the dates? One took place way before the Jesus dates, and the other takes place after He was long dead.

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[idea]

Perhaps Jesus wants people to learn of him first hand, rather than out of a book.

 

[Awoon]

Perhaps Jesus wants people to learn of him first hand, rather than out of a book.

That would be great. No one has gone on written record of hearing from Jesus since Paul?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Perhaps Jesus wants people to learn of him first hand, rather than out of a book.

And how do you propose they do that? By listening to a preacher?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

We have a lot of info about Nero from documents sent back and forth, history of the Caesars, minted coins, art, etc.

Let's start with this. "The history of Nero’s reign is problematic in that no historical sources survived that were contemporary with Nero" (wiki)

What about coins and art? Well, we have coins and art and inscriptions and so on depicting Zeus, the Homeric heroes, other deities, etc. In fact, we have far more works of art, statues, inscriptions, writings, etc., on Achilles than we do Nero. So did Achilles exist? The number of all of this evidence goes up when we go from heroes to deities. Do coins with a god on one side or on both provide us with historical evidence that that deity was real?


Then there's the problems with the historians who did write about Nero. One, Philostratus, includes Nero in his biography of one Apollonius of Tyana. Apollonius of Tyana was a magician and a legendary figure that was a contemporary of Jesus. However, we don't actually even know when Philostratus lived. We know only within a particular range. So he probably wrote this biography of Apollonius about a century after Apollonius died. More importantly, his biography isn't about Nero but a legendary magician, and he was born after Nero was long dead. Another set of biographies by the same author, On Heroes, talks about "historical" figures like Achilles. Josephus talks about him, and Josephus did live while Nero was alive, but Josephus tells us that sources on Nero are unreliable. He also writes about Moses and other biblical figures as historical people. So why are we trusting a source who treats people like Abraham, Moses, etc., as historical people?


Then there's the problem of disagreements between the accounts. Some describe him as an insane, cruel, tyrant while others praise him.


What about textual evidence? We have no actual manuscripts that are within even several centuries of Nero. And all of the manuscripts (even as a quotation) we have from those who talk about Nero are not only late copies of copies of copies, there are also barely any (in fact, there's a book version of this dissertation on how problematic or manuscript evidence for Tacitus is, from the time manuscripts begin to be widely translated and/or copied in the 1500s to the 1700s).

So we have a bunch of varying accounts, most of which were written by people who either weren't alive when Nero was, and none that were written when Nero was alive, some which include miracles and legends and all include rumor and hearsay, and we don't know what kinds of scribal errors may have occurred over the vast time period from when these authors wrote to what we actually have.

In fact, some of the biographers seem to have borrowed from the gospels in the way that they portray Nero (although this isn't something I believe; biographers always made legends, good or bad, out of the person they wrote about). Whether that's true or not, what we have amounts to a bunch of legends and disagreeing accounts, most written by people who weren't alive at the time and who wrote about other "historical" figures like Moses or the magician Apollonius.

So this:

His real name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, born Dec. 15 in 37 A.D.. He was the son of Agrippina the Younger. He was adopted by Claudius, and his name changed to Nero Claudius Caesar

and all the other details you are obtained by historians from less evidence than we have for Jesus.

As for the other - did you look at the dates? One took place way before the Jesus dates, and the other takes place after He was long dead.

I have no idea what dates you are talking about. What I am wondering is if you have ever read any of the sources we use to obtain the details you provided. Have you? And if you haven't, how can you compare them to the gospels and the other evidence for Jesus?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

I have no idea what dates you are talking about.

Most of the Talmudic passages are about Ben Stada.

The Talmudic passages say the man was stoned by the Jewish courts - not killed by the Romans as the Bible says.

We also know there are multiple people with the same name being written about over time and from different areas.

These say the mother's husband was Pappos Ben Yehudah, a name known in other Talmudic literature. He was born after the "Jesus" of the Bible would have died. Pappos died in 134.

A second one mentions a "Yeshu" who practiced magic and led the Israelites astray.

This "Yeshu" also had five followers - Matai, Nekai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah. They were executed along with him.

It also mentions this event happend in the time of King John Hyrcanus. It is believed to have happened about 93 BCE, and he was dead by 91 BCE. These Rabbis were able to return by 80 BCE.

Those dates. The ones that clearly say the Talmud is not referring to the Jesus of the Bible.

 

[Ingledsva]

...

I have no idea what dates you are talking about. What I am wondering is if you have ever read any of the sources we use to obtain the details you provided. Have you? And if you haven't, how can you compare them to the gospels and the other evidence for Jesus?

The dates I posted above for the verses you think are about the Biblical Jesus.

As to Nero - we have far more information from real people concerning real events corroborated by others. And we can trace back the Caesars, etc.

We don't have anything like that for Jesus.

And of course I've read a lot of the material we are discussing, and related exegeses, which is why I know the dates and events being covered are not from the time of Jesus.

For instance one of them gives a specific event and names the King involved. We know this event took place around 93 B.C.E. and the Rabbi were back before 80 B.C.E. So no Biblical Jesus there.

The other gives the woman Mariam's husband's name, - and he is known elsewhere in the writings - and we know around when he was born, and we know the date he died. This event takes place after Jesus would have been already dead. So again not the Jesus of the Bible.

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[LegionOnomaMoi]

The dates I posted above for the verses you think are about the Biblical Jesus.

You mean when Jesus was born and when he died, which aren't in any verses in the bible? You know why scholars say he was born around 4 BCE? Because he could have been born in 5 BCE. Or 6. The verses tell us about people like Herod which gives us a time interval.

As to Nero - we have far more information from real people concerning real events corroborated by others. And we can trace back the Caesars, etc.

I just went through all of your evidence. That's you counter-argument? Repeating what you originally said? We have Suetonius who describes Caesar as a God, Philostratus who not only says Homeric Heroes were historical, but writes about Nero in another work: a biography of a legendary magician. Our accounts disagree, all were written after he was dead and the authors usually were born after Nero died. As for non-literary evidence, just like our literary evidence for Homeric heroes, we have art, statues, coins, etc., with mythic heroes and gods.

You think that because you can go to Wikipedia and copy some dates that this somehow means we have the evidence to support these dates? Wikipedia wasn't around in the 1st century. The details you posted came from specific sources. None of them were written while Nero was alive, some of them were written a century or two after he died, they disagree, most of the authors attribute divine status or miraculous feats to individuals they wrote about, and all of them include rumors and hearsay. Finally, all of them are problematic from a manuscript point of view because we are relying on a tiny number of manuscripts often around 1300-1500 CE and the manuscripts we know are flawed.

We don't have anything like that for Jesus.

That's exactly what we have for Jesus, only more. The gospels are very much like the sources you haven't read but from which the details you posted originate from, only
1) They are closer in time to Jesus than those for Nero. Paul, for example, was actually alive I knew Jesus' brother.
2) Mark was written aroung ~70 CE, making it unknown but likely that the author was alive when Jesus was. Either way, that's a 40 years difference, less than any real record for Nero.
3) The main source for Nero is Suetonius, who not only wasn't alive when Nero was, but attributes not only miraculous events to the Caesars, he attributes godhood as well.
4) We have four sources that are akin to Suetonius, the best source for Caesar, only unlike Suetonius, our earliest actual fragment of the NT dates to around ~125CE, and we have something like 7,000 manuscripts, papyri, codices, and other partial or full sources for the NT without even getting into the non-NT sources. By contrast, if you took all of our manuscripts for Nero and counted them, we'd have fewer than we do just of papyri scraps for Jesus.
5) The disagreements between the gospel narratives are rather small. The differences between the various (usually no more than a few lines) for Suetonius disagree entirely.

And of course I've read a lot of the material we are discussing, and related exegeses, which is why I know the dates and events being covered are not from the time of Jesus.

You've read what exactly? Something on the Talmud? How about something like:
Van Voorst, R. E. (2000). Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. (Studying the Historical Jesus)

There are plenty of sources which go into some detail on the nature of the evidence. That's just one. And if you want to talk about the Jewish references to Jesus, then we have to include not just Josephus and the Talmud, but the work on understanding the transmission of the Talmudic material in works by Neusner, Vermes, Cohen, Herford, Geiger, etc.

So no Biblical Jesus there.

Are you talking about the Talmudic material? Do you really not understand that the gospels belong to the genre of ancient historical biographies, and thus are sources themselves? If you don't think they should be used, then tell me why we should believe anything about Nero when we don't even know how altered our manuscripts, in which he is referenced or (in Suetonius' case) is the subject of an ancient biography, actually are. And explain why we should trust authors who claim that people like Moses, Achilles and other legends were historical people, or that the emperors were divine and report miracles about them or about others?

Because if you can't explain why we find the same type of content (miracles, magic, rumor, etc.) in our sources for Nero, then you have case.

This event takes place after Jesus would have been already dead. So again not the Jesus of the Bible.

That's true of all writings about Nero.

 

[steeltoes]

So this:



and all the other details [about Nero] you are obtained by historians from less evidence than we have for Jesus.

Bull, from the same wiki article you pulled one line from " Nonetheless, these lost primary sources were the basis of surviving secondary and tertiary histories on Nero written by the next generations of historians.[174] A few of the contemporary historians are known by name. Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder all wrote condemning histories on Nero that are now lost" wiki


Nothing like pulling one line out of context to make your baseless point. What primary sources were the basis for later generations writings of Jesus?

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

What primary sources were the basis for later generations writings of Jesus?

The Gospel of Tyrone... He was Jesus's best friend and countless texts written decades after the fact say that Jesus had friends, so if you disagree with this obvious truth you're not worthy of this conversation. :sarcastic

 

[steeltoes]

The Gospel of Tyrone... He was Jesus's best friend and countless texts written decades after the fact say that Jesus had friends, so if you disagree with this obvious truth you're not worthy of this conversation. :sarcastic

I was hoping that no one would mention the Gospel of Tyrone because it doesn't suit our agenda.opcorn:

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Bull, from the same wiki article you pulled one line from " Nonetheless, these lost primary sources were the basis of surviving secondary and tertiary histories on Nero written by the next generations of historians.[174] A few of the contemporary historians are known by name. Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus and Pliny the Elder all wrote condemning histories on Nero that are now lost" wiki

So now we are using evidence we don't have because it is referenced somewhere? What remarkable credulity you have when it suits you. How do you know it forms the basis (apart from the fact that you are able to read Wikipedia)? What if, as you have done so frequently, I say "argument from authority" and assert your citation of what actually isn't an authority is an appeal to one? Then you'd have difficulties. Because
1) You aren't actually citing any authority.
2) Even if you were, the "authority" states that the information we have comes from lost sources we know nothing about and do not have. How can we know that they were used by the authors whose works survived?
3) You are still left with contradicting evidence by precious few authors which contradict each other and which we know have been tampered with. However, as we have so few manuscripts for these authors, we can't even begin to use the kind of textual criticism methods we are able to thanks to the NT textual witnesses.

But you did do one thing. You proved my point. You haven't read these sources, you haven't read the scholarship on them, and the best you can manage is a few lines from an online encyclopedia that anybody can alter. But you trust it. Not only do you trust it, but instead of critically evaluating the claims made you assume they are true on faith and use your faith to support your dogma.

Nothing like pulling one line out of context to make your baseless point. What primary sources were the basis for later generations writings of Jesus?

Jesus. That was the primary source. Then it became a series of texts. The difference is that the texts we have are less problematic and more numerous than for Nero. We don't have authors writing 200 years after Nero and who write about miracles and legends just like the gospels. We don't have almost nothing other than passing references in works by authors who treat likely or definitely fictional persons as historical persons. Nor is this the end of the problems with our sources for Nero.

But, like a typical mythicist, your critical thinking turns into blind faith in Wikipedia if it supports the view you want.

 

[steeltoes]

So now we are using evidence we don't have because it is referenced somewhere? What remarkable credulity you have when it suits you. How do you know it forms the basis (apart from the fact that you are able to read Wikipedia)? What if, as you have done so frequently, I say "argument from authority" and assert your citation of what actually isn't an authority is an appeal to one? Then you'd have difficulties. Because
1) You aren't actually citing any authority.
2) Even if you were, the "authority" states that the information we have comes from lost sources we know nothing about and do not have. How can we know that they were used by the authors whose works survived?
3) You are still left with contradicting evidence by precious few authors which contradict each other and which we know have been tampered with. However, as we have so few manuscripts for these authors, we can't even begin to use the kind of textual criticism methods we are able to thanks to the NT textual witnesses.

But you did do one thing. You proved my point. You haven't read these sources, you haven't read the scholarship on them, and the best you can manage is a few lines from an online encyclopedia that anybody can alter. But you trust it. Not only do you trust it, but instead of critically evaluating the claims made you assume they are true on faith and use your faith to support your dogma.



Jesus. That was the primary source. Then it became a series of texts. The difference is that the texts we have are less problematic and more numerous than for Nero. We don't have authors writing 200 years after Nero and who write about miracles and legends just like the gospels. We don't have almost nothing other than passing references in works by authors who treat likely or definitely fictional persons as historical persons. Nor is this the end of the problems with our sources for Nero.

But, like a typical mythicist, your critical thinking turns into blind faith in Wikipedia if it supports the view you want.

You are the one that referenced wiki and used the one line that suited your agenda. We see how you come to baseless conclusions. Jesus was the primary source? :biglaugh: