Why don't Theist's admit that there's no evidence for God?

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Are people testifying to seeing a guy in a spider costume swinging around downtown New York?

They are in the book that says they are... Striking similarity to another book. Can't quite place the name of it, though... :sarcastic

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There is much historical evidence for Christ beyond the Bible. In fact there is many more times as much as in it. Christ is the most textually attested figure in ancient history but it does not stop there.

Hardly.

There are plenty of sources describing the beliefs of Christians, but that's not the same thing.

AFAIK, the scholarly consensus is that there are only two ancient records of a historical Jesus:

- The Gospels
- an offhand remark in Flavius Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" (the shorter passage that talks about "James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ", not the longer, fabricated Tesimonium Flavianum)

That's it. And both were written at least decades after Jesus' death.

Now... if you have other reliable sources, please share.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Are people testifying to seeing a guy in a spider costume swinging around downtown New York?

Are testifying to seeing the dead emerge from their tombs and wander into Jerusalem?

Heck... are there even other sources for Herod's massacre of the infant boys of kingdom? Josephus was no fan of Herod and he wrote a history of his reign. I'm sure that if he had dirt on Herod - as long as it was actually true - he would've used it. Did he?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Hardly.

Depending upon what was meant by textually attested, then the textual attestation for Jesus is well beyond anything from the ancient world. That just means that we have lots of manuscripts, fragments, quotes, etc. of the texts themselves.

If what was meant was that we have more evidence for Jesus than for most, this is still true. It is true, however, because most of the names of people that we know of from antiquity are from a single line. If we had only Eusebius' quotation of Papias and Tacitus, we'd have something more like the average evidence for people of antiquity.

AFAIK, the scholarly consensus is that there are only two ancient records of a historical Jesus:

- The Gospels
- an offhand remark in Flavius Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" (the shorter passage that talks about "James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ", not the longer, fabricated Tesimonium Flavianum)

The scholarly consensus is at the very least that we have Paul, both passages in Josephus (the consensus is that the longer is clearly altered but did refer to Jesus), the gospels, and Tacitus. Some might add that the consensus includes Suetonius. Dunn, in his section on non-Christian sources sources (7.1), mentions all of these in addition to the rabbinic sources, and concludes: "Such references are important if only because about once every generation someone reruns the thesis that Jesus never existed and that the Jesus tradition is a wholesale invention. But they provide very little hard information and it will suffice to refer to them at the two or three relevant points in what follows."

That's it. And both were written at least decades after Jesus' death.

If we are comparing standard time intervals passing between a person and the first account of this person we have knowledge of, that this is better than most that we have such accounts of (which is a tiny minority).

 

[Enai de a lukal]

There is much historical evidence for Christ beyond the Bible. In fact there is many more times as much as in it. Christ is the most textually attested figure in ancient history but it does not stop there.

While 1robin's claim here is pretty obviously overstated, the opposite extreme- that "there is no evidence for the historical Christ"- is equally inaccurate and dogmatic... I just have to wonder why people (atheists, mostly- let's be honest here) are so stubborn in their insistence that there is not and cannot be any (much less a compelling amount) of evidence for the historical Christ; do they think that if there were, this would be tantamount to the Christian religion being true, as a whole (needless to say, this is non-sequitur)? And are they entirely blind to the irony in atheists dogmatically refusing to acknowledge empirical evidence in a dispute with Christians? Silly stuff, really...

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

While 1robin's claim here is pretty obviously overstated

Upon what do you base this? And in what way do you think the claim overstated?

 

[nash8]

Upon what do you base this? And in what way do you think the claim overstated?

I would say the "outside of the Bible" part, and the existance of more non-Biblical references than Biblical references. If you took out sources outside of the Bible, would he still be the most textually attested to figure in history, and are there more non-Biblical references for Jesus that Biblical ones?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

As an agnostic theist I always notice other theist's attempting to prove God in one way or another. These arguments are never sufficient or conclusive enough to prove God. I recognize that my position is irrational and that there is no evidence for God. If you already have faith in God, what is the need to attempt to prove him?

I have no problem with that proposition at all.

I have never heard or seen any tangible evidence that God exists.
However I can not imagine a scenario with out God.
Faith seems to be irrational, and describes an irrational state of mind.
But no one would argue that it does not exist.
Man's mind seems tied up with the concept of God.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

And in what way do you think the claim overstated?

This part in particular-

There is much historical evidence for Christ beyond the Bible. In fact there is many more times as much as in it.

"Many more times"? Unless we're counting all of the Biblical references as being one piece of evidence, "many more times" seems like a pretty big stretch. And that Christ is "the most textually attested figure in ancient history" is a pretty common, albeit problematic claim- are we simply comparing number of references? Or does the documentation of contemporaries weigh more than other references (in which case quite a few ancient figures would jump ahead of Christ)? It seems it would be more accurate to say that the evidence for Christ is roughly on par with other major figures in the ancient world- in the context of ancient history, Christ's existence is fairly likely.

But in any case, this is all beside the point that I was making- which was that the frequent denial of the existence of any evidence for a historical Christ is either delusional or dishonest (because there clearly is at least some), and that the existence of a historical Christ doesn't entail that any of the more fantastical elements of the Gospels are true (miracles, resurrections etc.), much less Christianity generally- so it isn't even clear what the point of this denial is in the first place (since there isn't anything especially crucial at stake- at least, not for non-Christians...)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

And that Christ is "the most textually attested figure in ancient history" is a pretty common, albeit problematic claim- are we simply comparing number of references?

Generally speaking (although I cannot attest as to the author's intent) textual attestation refers to the number of manuscripts or other textual critical evidence (e.g., Tatian's Diatessaron or quotes in the patristic manuscripts). If that is the case, than it is absolutely true Jesus Christ is "the most textually attested figure in ancient history".

You seem to be assuming that there are a fair number of texts written by other ancient authors for which we have the originals. Nothing could be further from the truth:

In fact, the number of texts we have make the task of the NT textual critic a joke compared to textual criticisms in classics. In the 4th edition of The Texts of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman , we find: "the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by the wealth of material. Furthermore, the work of many ancient authors has been preserved only in manuscripts that date from the Middle Ages (sometimes the late Middle ages), far removed from the time at which they lived and wrote. On the contrary, the time between the composition of the books of the New Testament and the earliest extant copies is relatively brief. Instead of the lapse of a millenium or more, as is the case of not a few classical authors, several papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament are extant that were copied within a century or so after the composition of the original documents."

Pick virtually any NT text (a gospel, a letter of Paul's), and you will find that apart from other NT texts the one you pick is, if not THE best attested manuscript from the ancient world, it's close.

Or does the documentation of contemporaries weigh more than other references (in which case quite a few ancient figures would jump ahead of Christ)? It seems it would be more accurate to say that the evidence for Christ is roughly on par with other major figures in the ancient world

[youtube]WUQMJR2BP1w[/youtube]

At about 4:35: "we have more evidence for Jesus than we have for almost anybody from his time period".

in the context of ancient history, Christ's existence is fairly likely.

In the context of ancient history, there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than for just about anybody else.

and that the existence of a historical Christ doesn't entail that any of the more fantastical elements of the Gospels are true (miracles, resurrections etc.),

And, moreover, any historical Jesus cannot, by definition, have actually performed miracles/magic/etc. History is about what most likely happened, as miracles are defined as those things which are so unlikely they cannot be explained by any known means, any explanation is more probably than a Jesus who actually did rise from the dead. This doesn't mean, of course, that people didn't believe he performed miracles; they almost certainly did. It just means that, like in almost every culture for all of time, people believe in magic/miracles and see them when they are not there.

(since there isn't anything especially crucial at stake- at least, not for non-Christians...)

I've never understood it, especially when I've heard arguments that the reason for the unanimity as to Jesus' historical existence is the product of some conspiracy of Christian bias desperate to cling to a historical Jesus. Paul said "if Jesus didn't rise" then Christian faith is in vain. There is no reason to think that scholars can talk about Jesus being gay, being eaten by dogs, being the equivalent of a '60s hippie academic, etc., but non-existence is taboo. His historicity is as meaningful (or should be) for non-Christians as that of Socrates, Plato, Euripides, Hypatia, Pythagoras, etc. Yet there are hosts of individuals whose sole knowledge of antiquity relates to the historical Jesus. I don't get it.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The scholarly consensus is at the very least that we have Paul, both passages in Josephus (the consensus is that the longer is clearly altered but did refer to Jesus), the gospels, and Tacitus. Some might add that the consensus includes Suetonius.

Suetonius and Tacitus are two examples of what I was talking about when I said that the other sources merely documented the beliefs of Christians, not the historical existence of Jesus directly. I don't think anyone here is claiming that Christians didn't exist in the first century.

I don't think that Paul counts. Paul describes a Christ who, apparently, is based on Paul's encounters with Christ after death. He does talk about encounters with other believers, but this just puts him in the same boat as Tacitus: he documents the beliefs of early Christians, not the historicity of Jesus directly.

As for Josephus, I should modify my original comment: while the Testimonium Flavianum is largely a later insertion, there may have been a genuine but unremarkable core. Whatever was there wasn't noteworthy enough for Origen to feel like it deserved mention, but that doesn't mean there was nothing at all. Fair enough.

Dunn, in his section on non-Christian sources sources (7.1), mentions all of these in addition to the rabbinic sources, and concludes: "Such references are important if only because about once every generation someone reruns the thesis that Jesus never existed and that the Jesus tradition is a wholesale invention. But they provide very little hard information and it will suffice to refer to them at the two or three relevant points in what follows."

And FWIW, I'm not one of the people who claims Jesus never existed. My opinion is it's most reasonable to believe that Jesus was a historical figure who had myth glommed onto him until the Jesus image we have today probably doesn't bear much similarity to the historical Jesus. I don't have any problem with the idea that a rebellious itinerant rabbi might have developed a following and then been executed by the authorities. The issues I have are with the mythic elements: the miracles, the resurrection, etc.... the things that no amount of written sources could ever sufficiently demonstrate.

If we are comparing standard time intervals passing between a person and the first account of this person we have knowledge of, that this is better than most that we have such accounts of (which is a tiny minority).

Which is still a far cry short of what robin1 claimed when he said that "Christ is the most textually attested figure in ancient history". While the evidence for a historical Jesus might be better than for most historical figures, it's still a fraction of the evidence for, say, Julius Caesar.

Also, I noticed something in robin1's phrasing: he didn't talk about historical attestations of Jesus, he talked about historical attestations of Christ. Just as we don't take the evidence about Julius Caesar the general and emperor to be evidence for Divus Julius, I don't think we should take any of the written sources about Jesus the itinerant preacher to be evidence of Christ the resurrected son of God.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I don't think anyone here is claiming that Christians didn't exist in the first century.

Followers are not infrequently all we have of our evidence for an individual. The Homeridae are all we have for Homer, and are nothing. The Pythagoreans are something more than nothing, but we lack anything resembling the "extra" evidence we have for Jesus. The genre of socratic dialogues are better still, and are good evidence for a historical Socrates.

I don't think that Paul counts. Paul describes a Christ who, apparently, is based on Paul's encounters with Christ after death.

The issue is of relative evidence. If you don't think Paul counts, you loose virtually all we know of ancient history. Paul knew Jesus' brother. He spend 2 weeks alone with Peter learning from him. He cites Jesus' teaching on divorce which is not only unparalleled in antiquity for historical figures but is also attested to in the gospels.

He does talk about encounters with other believers, but this just puts him in the same boat as Tacitus: he documents the beliefs of early Christians, not the historicity of Jesus directly.

That's so well beyond all we have for almost everybody it would be a significant finding if, for some individual we know of, we discovered such attestation.

And FWIW, I'm not one of the people who claims Jesus never existed.

I didn't mean to imply you did. I simply am pointing out that the statement made may be, depending on authorial intent, quite accurate. This says more about our ignorance of antiquity than it does our knowledge of Jesus.

The issues I have are with the mythic elements: the miracles, the resurrection, etc.... the things that no amount of written sources could ever sufficiently demonstrate.

Of course.

Which is still a far cry short of what robin1 claimed when he said that "Christ is the most textually attested figure in ancient history". While the evidence for a historical Jesus might be better than for most historical figures, it's still a fraction of the evidence for, say, Julius Caesar.

Again, I cannot speak for authorial intent. Generally, textual attestation refers to evidence that relates to textual criticism. Here, Julius Caesar is nothing. Our manuscripts for his writings are just as pathetically attested to as virtually all authors from antiquity. They pale in comparison to the attestation of the NT. But this is not the same as historical evidence. Not by a long shot.

Also, I noticed something in robin1's phrasing: he didn't talk about historical attestations of Jesus, he talked about historical attestations of Christ.

I noticed that too. True, "Christ" became as much as a part of a name for Jesus as "Jesus of Nazareth" or "Mary of Magdala", but just "Christ"? No.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

In the context of ancient history, there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than for just about anybody else.

Right- but then we are talking about the quantity, and this needn't entail that we have better or more compelling evidence for the existence of Christ than other ancient figures (in this regard I suspect there are others, for whom we have evidence from known contemporaries- Alexander, perhaps?- which arguably admit of stronger or more compelling evidence). The point being that arbitrating what ancient figures admit of more or better evidence than others can be tricky and difficult to settle, but that the evidence for Christ is on par with the evidence for other ancient figures whose historicity is generally accepted- so in order to rule out a historical Christ, one must either similarly rule out the existence of most other major figures from antiquity (Socrates, Caeser, etc.), or employ a double-standard.

I've never understood it, especially when I've heard arguments that the reason for the unanimity as to Jesus' historical existence is the product of some conspiracy of Christian bias desperate to cling to a historical Jesus.

Especially since most intellectually responsible Christians nowadays have absolutely no problem letting go of the literal truth of most ANY scriptural narrative or doctrine; but I'm guessing the vehement denial of evidence for a historical Christ is at least partially motivated by the notion that acknowledging a historical Christ is a large concession to the truth of the Christian faith in general... But this is a simply mistaken and naive assumption, which should be obvious (but apparently is not).

His historicity is as meaningful (or should be) for non-Christians as that of Socrates, Plato, Euripides, Hypatia, Pythagoras, etc.

Well sure, but at least in terms of unsophisticated versions of Christianity and atheism (as are often found among laymen), the non-existence of a historical Christ would have more religious significance to a Christian than the existence of Christ would to an atheist.

But just prima facie, I would almost be more suprised to find out that all of this noise about this person, Jesus Christ, which has lasted for two millenia (!!!), did NOT have a kernal of truth at its core- that it wasn't "based on a true story", as it were- than I would to find out that it IS based on some historical facts (like a real person).

 

[1robin]

Hardly.

There are plenty of sources describing the beliefs of Christians, but that's not the same thing.

AFAIK, the scholarly consensus is that there are only two ancient records of a historical Jesus:

- The Gospels
- an offhand remark in Flavius Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" (the shorter passage that talks about "James, the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ", not the longer, fabricated Tesimonium Flavianum)

That's it. And both were written at least decades after Jesus' death.

Now... if you have other reliable sources, please share.

There are several classes of documentation concerning Christ.

1. Eyewitness testimony concerning Christ.
2. Early Testimony derived from eyewitnesses of Christ.
3. Indirect testimony about Christ from contemporary or very early sources.
4. Historical documents that either mention Christ or an event that is associated with him.
5. Near contemporary or very early documents that record the explosion of Christianity within the first century or two of the faiths emergence.

For some reason you seemed have made comments about number five that had little effect and ignore the other four. It is a little hard to explain the explosion of a faith based on the life of a single man in the face of tyrannical opposition from at least two empires and long before rapid media control of crowd dynamics without the man ever having existed. I can haggle over the impact of source type all you want but it all adds up to more TEXTUAL attestation than any other figure including Caesar (who's own work exists in less than 20 copies written 1000 years after his time). The majority of NT scholars on all sides not only agree that he was a historical figure but most of the core natural events in the Gospels are historical fact.

 

[1robin]

While 1robin's claim here is pretty obviously overstated, the opposite extreme- that "there is no evidence for the historical Christ"- is equally inaccurate and dogmatic... I just have to wonder why people (atheists, mostly- let's be honest here) are so stubborn in their insistence that there is not and cannot be any (much less a compelling amount) of evidence for the historical Christ; do they think that if there were, this would be tantamount to the Christian religion being true, as a whole (needless to say, this is non-sequitur)? And are they entirely blind to the irony in atheists dogmatically refusing to acknowledge empirical evidence in a dispute with Christians? Silly stuff, really...

I am not sure what you meant by overstated. What I claimed concerning textual attestation is simply a scholastic fact. I agree with the rest of what you stated. The question of the supernatural impact of the historical Christ is the only open question his existence is not.

 

[1robin]

As an agnostic theist I always notice other theist's attempting to prove God in one way or another. These arguments are never sufficient or conclusive enough to prove God. I recognize that my position is irrational and that there is no evidence for God. If you already have faith in God, what is the need to attempt to prove him?

God is not a proof claim. It is a faith claim. Faith claims only carry the burdens of not-contradicting historical fact and being logically supported from the evidence available. This is a fact and one by design in my opinion. God (for whatever reason demands and values faith), faith precludes proof. Short of proof the Bible is by far the most historically supported revelation known to exist. It exceeds it's actual burden many times over.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Right- but then we are talking about the quantity

No, we are talking about the evidence. Quality, quantity, everything. There is more evidence for a historical Jesus than there is for virtually anyone of the ancient world. Period. As you say, for those generally agreed to be historical, "more evidence" is a matter of debate. Sometimes we have less source material but simply by virtue of the improbability that fewer sources for an emperor who conquered almost the entire Near East we might have "more evidence". For Alexander the Great we have mostly later accounts that are fewer in number and are filled with legends (he is the son of a god, he is descended from Herakles, as an infant he magically reappeared and disappeared, etc.). We have statues, coins, etc., but we have these of Zeus & Herakles too. For Nero we have two lives (a form of biographical historiography, akin to the gospels, usually legendary and usually lacking the characteristic attention to or concern with chronology in ancient history, and which sought to bring out the nature of the subject through the subjects acts & deeds, including magical & legendary ones), not 4. One of them is by Suetonius, a source for Jesus, written almost a century after Nero. Another source is Tacitus, who again is a source for Jesus and actually a source for Jesus in the context of discussing Nero. For Socrates we have everything from a play to a life written some ~700 years after him and the logoi Sokratoi, or the literary genre that Diogenes Laertius attributes to a certain Simon the Shoe-maker, if memory serves. In this genre would go the "biographical" fictions of Plato & Xenophon. For Constantine we have almost no one but Eusebius and a whole lot of fragments. For John the Baptist we have the gospels and Josephus. For the teacher of righteousness we have only the Qumran documents. For Paul, we have Paul and Acts. For Jesus' rough contemporary Apollonius of Tyana, we have only the legendary life by Philostratus, written about a century after him. For the Caesars in general, we have Suetonius as a main source and usually another life as well as many fragments and references to lost works (sometimes no different than the beginning of Luke, in which the author tells us that this work is one among many, though so far as we know the author didn't know of Matthew and Mark was the only other account of Jesus written down; this means that either the author was exaggerating, a common theme for lives as most often they were written about emperors, philosophers, and heroes, or we have other sources lost to us). In fact, for many of the lost sources we know of that supposedly mentioned various historical figures, we know of them only through the references to these works.

for whom we have evidence from known contemporaries

That would be Jesus, for whom we have evidence from a contemporary (Paul) who knew Jesus' brother. Paul is known from his letters and Acts.

- Alexander, perhaps?

All contemporary evidence which might have existed is lost. It is referenced in what remains, but we know that such references were not always trustworthy. Also, it is hard enough at times to tell whether a work was actually written by the person claiming to be the author, let alone do this with a fragmentary quotation by e.g., Arrian or Plutarch (for whom we not only have a Pseudo-Plutarch, but who begins his "life" of Alexander with "It is agreed on by all hands, that on the father's side, Alexander descended from Hercules by Caranus" [Ἀλέξανδρος ὅτι τῷ γένει πρὸς πατρὸς μὲν ἦν Ἡρακλείδης ἀπὸ Καράνου...τῶν πάνυ πεπιστευμένων ἐστί]).

The point being that arbitrating what ancient figures admit of more or better evidence than others can be tricky and difficult to settle, but that the evidence for Christ is on par with the evidence for other ancient figures whose historicity is generally accepted-

Fair enough.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

Hardly.

There are plenty of sources describing the beliefs of Christians, but that's not the same thing.

:clap thank you...

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

1. Eyewitness testimony concerning Christ.

Such as? ...

 

[1robin]

Such as? ...

I will assume your question is what it seems though common knowledge suggests I did not understand it.

Mark
Paul
John
Mathew
Peter
James

Luke's sources.

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