[hrothgar]

Winstonm, on Nov 6 2009, 04:23 PM, said:

Quote

didn't a contemporary historian or two mention that he lived and even that he was killed by pilate?

My understanding is no.

I think that Winston overstaes his case:

Wikipedia has a good treatment of this topic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_J...onium_Flavianum

[Winstonm]

hrothgar, on Nov 6 2009, 08:47 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Nov 6 2009, 04:23 PM, said:

Quote

didn't a contemporary historian or two mention that he lived and even that he was killed by pilate?

My understanding is no.

I think that Winston overstaes his case:

Wikipedia has a good treatment of this topic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_J...onium_Flavianum

Probably so.

However, in defense I felt the original statement was not accurate that (paraphrasing) the life of Jesus was the most well-documented event in history.

Btw, I am not challenging the historic reality of Jesus - only the claim about how well-documented.

[helene_t]

Antiquities of the Jews was published in 93 or 94. Does that count as "contemporary"?

[ArtK78]

helene_t, on Nov 6 2009, 08:55 AM, said:

Antiquities of the Jews was published in 93 or 94. Does that count as "contemporary"?

Relative to today, it would. However, relative to events from the years 30-33, it would seem to be far too late to be considered contemporary.

[Lobowolf]

Codo, on Nov 6 2009, 05:57 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Nov 6 2009, 09:25 AM, said:

I am always amazed when the religious do not grasp the significance of a secular government - seeming not to understand that it is the very secular nature of their government that allows them to practice their religion in the manner they believe.

The U.S. is not a democracy - it is a Republic.  Majority rules in a democracy but not so a Republic...

This is your truth? Okay, stay to it. You life in another world then me.

Yes, he does. It's called the USA.

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Nov 6 2009, 08:53 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Nov 6 2009, 08:47 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Nov 6 2009, 04:23 PM, said:

Quote

didn't a contemporary historian or two mention that he lived and even that he was killed by pilate?

My understanding is no.

I think that Winston overstaes his case:

Wikipedia has a good treatment of this topic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_J...onium_Flavianum

Probably so.

However, in defense I felt the original statement was not accurate that (paraphrasing) the life of Jesus was the most well-documented event in history.

Btw, I am not challenging the historic reality of Jesus - only the claim about how well-documented.

put the word 'ancient' in front of history and i think it's a pretty accurate statement (re: alex the great)

btw, josephus wasn't the only historian of the time, i think tacitus had a word or two to say about Jesus

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Nov 6 2009, 08:17 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Nov 6 2009, 08:53 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Nov 6 2009, 08:47 AM, said:

Winstonm, on Nov 6 2009, 04:23 PM, said:

Quote

didn't a contemporary historian or two mention that he lived and even that he was killed by pilate?

My understanding is no.

I think that Winston overstaes his case:

Wikipedia has a good treatment of this topic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_J...onium_Flavianum

Probably so.

However, in defense I felt the original statement was not accurate that (paraphrasing) the life of Jesus was the most well-documented event in history.

Btw, I am not challenging the historic reality of Jesus - only the claim about how well-documented.

put the word 'ancient' in front of history and i think it's a pretty accurate statement (re: alex the great)

btw, josephus wasn't the only historian of the time, i think tacitus had a word or two to say about Jesus

The Annals were written somewhere around 110 AD

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Nov 6 2009, 12:57 PM, said:

The Annals were written somewhere around 110 AD

which is some 80 years after Jesus' death... compare to accounts of other historical(?) figures

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Nov 7 2009, 12:34 AM, said:

hrothgar, on Nov 6 2009, 12:57 PM, said:

The Annals were written somewhere around 110 AD

which is some 80 years after Jesus' death... compare to accounts of other historical(?) figures

Josephus wrote The Jewish War 40 years before the Annals

[Winstonm]

I thought this was an overbid:

Quote

but the execution of Jesus Christ, who clamied to be the Son of God, is incredibly well documented

....so I doubled:

Quote

my understanding is that what your profess is factually inaccurate. There is NO reference written by a historian (or anyone else) who was a contemporary of a person named Jesus from Nazareth.

If it makes, it's not like it is the first bad double I have ever made.

What I wasn't prepared for was the redouble:

Quote

I think that Winston overstaes his case:

At which point I fall back on the Clinton defense - it depends on what your definition is of "contemporary historian". Can I have a review, please? (If I'm wrong, I simply eat the Queen of Hearts.)

Still, I think no one can deny this as factual:

Quote

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus

And these references aren't exactly the Pentagon Papers:

Quote

Jesus of Nazareth is possibly mentioned in two passages of the work The Antiquities of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus, written in the late first century AD. One passage, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, discusses the career of Jesus. The authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum has been disputed since the 17th century.

Now, how important these facts are is another debate. All things considered, I still like the original double.

[luke warm]

can't the same be said of others? the same website you quoted from (here, btw: http://nobeliefs.com/exist.htm) says this about alex...

Quote

In qualifying the history of Alexander, Pierre Briant writes, "Although more than twenty of his contemporaries chronicled Alexander's life and campaigns, none of these texts survive in original form. Many letters and speeches attributed to Alexander are ancient forgeries or reconstructions inspired by imagination or political motives. The little solid documentation we possess from Alexander's own time is mainly to be found in stone inscriptions from the Greek cities of Europe and Asia."

the interesting thing to me is his use of the word 'contemporaries'... for example, the writings of plutarch (and sometimes ptolemy) are usually used, but he lived more than 300 years after alex, yet is called a contemporary... here we have josephus and tacitus, who lived and wrote less than 100 years after Jesus' death... the author also denigrates eye witness accounts of Jesus but accepts those of others (some of which are known forgeries)

it seems arbitrary to me

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Nov 6 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

can't the same be said of others? the same website you quoted from (here, btw: http://nobeliefs.com/exist.htm) says this about alex...

Quote

In qualifying the history of Alexander, Pierre Briant writes, "Although more than twenty of his contemporaries chronicled Alexander's life and campaigns, none of these texts survive in original form. Many letters and speeches attributed to Alexander are ancient forgeries or reconstructions inspired by imagination or political motives. The little solid documentation we possess from Alexander's own time is mainly to be found in stone inscriptions from the Greek cities of Europe and Asia."

the interesting thing to me is his use of the word 'contemporaries'... for example, the writings of plutarch (and sometimes ptolemy) are usually used, but he lived more than 300 years after alex, yet is called a contemporary... here we have josephus and tacitus, who lived and wrote less than 100 years after Jesus' death... the author also denigrates eye witness accounts of Jesus but accepts those of others (some of which are known forgeries)

it seems arbitrary to me

Of course it is arbitrary. Which is why I made my original double. My double was not a challenge that there was no historical Jesus - my challenge was that his life and times were not well documented.

Quote

Main Entry: 1con·tem·po·rary
1 : happening, existing, living, or coming into being during the same period of time

Quote

the execution of Jesus Christ, who clamied to be the Son of God, is incredibly well documented

There is no Roman record of this event. There is no contemporaneous record of this event. It again depends on your definition of "well documented." I say almost nothing of ancient history can be classified as "well documented", but more like "our best guess".

[luke warm]

well just say what *you* think about it then... in your opinion, did Jesus exist?

[kenberg]

I am coming into this late. I find it interesting simply as an exploration of what we can know of the life of someone two thousand years ago.

So I pulled up "Early Christianity" on the web, the Wikepedia was right there. It begins:

"Early Christianity is commonly known as the Christianity of the roughly three centuries (1st, 2nd, 3rd, early 4th) between the Crucifixion of Jesus (c.26-36) and the First Council of Nicaea in 325."

As near as I can tell, the writer is not at all hostile to Christianity. Yet he gives a ten year interval for the crucifixion. If the documentation is as extensive as some on the thread have claimed, I would expect more exact dating.


I recently saw the movie Bound for Glory, described by IMDb as an excellent biography of Woody Guthrie. Not really. David Carradine is in fact excellent but it suited the filmmakers to make his story simpler than it was, at least as I understand it. People with an agenda tell the story as they wish us to think that it happened, not as it happened. With Guthrie, we are speaking here of someone who died forty years ago, not 2000 years ago.

Homer speaks of Agamemnon and Achilles as if they were historical. I suppose most think they were not. You can't prove it by me either way.


So I dunno. But if the date cannot be pinned down more closely than c. 26-36, I think it is going to far to call it well-documented.

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Nov 6 2009, 06:47 PM, said:

well just say what *you* think about it then... in your opinion, did Jesus exist?

I would say that there is a likelihood that someone named Jesus lived during the approximate time period claimed - I would say I am probably 60/40 in favor, not convinced but not unconvinced, either.

Of course, that may be due to the way I was taught about Jesus versus other ancient historical figures - my only teaching about Jesus came from a church while school taught about other figures. As I grew older and began to doubt the wisdom of what I was taught by the church, I think it was only natural to have doubts about Jesus, too, especially as there is no concrete proof of his historical existence.

[Winstonm]

Btw, I don't know for sure if this claim is accurate, but it certainly makes you want to say, Hmmm to the whole idea of historical references:

Quote

Just as we have a brief mention of Jesus by Joesphus in his Antiquities, Joesphus also mentions Hercules (more times than Jesus), in the very same work (see: 1.15; 8.5.3; 10.11.1). Just as Tacitus mentions a Christus, so does he also mention Hercules many times in his Annals.

Just for clarity, it is a fairly well held opinion that Hercules was fictional.

[blackshoe]

I recently read a book which discussed some events in the 1950s, centering around the Cold War and how close we came to a hot one. At the end of the book, the author freely admitted that he took some liberties with the historical facts. And then he said "the actions of Superman and Batman, however, are of course all true".

[Trinidad]

luke warm, on Nov 7 2009, 12:47 AM, said:

well just say what *you* think about it then... in your opinion, did Jesus exist?

I guess you realize that this question has nothing to do with the question whether the crucifiction and resurrection of Jesus were "well documented" (as Phil claims):

Quote

The cruuxificition is better documented than any other event prior the end of the dark ages. There are roman records for one thing, and literally thousands of documents referring to it.

Rik

P.S. I doubt anyone is interested, but my belief is that about 2000 years ago there was a man named Jesus, who came from Nazareth, who had religious opinions that were controversial at the time. I consider the thought that the Roman government decided to crucify him for that (upon instigation from the local religious leaders) entirely reasonable. Even nowadays, governments can kill people for less. But that's where my belief stops.

I consider it perfectly possible that I am wrong, and there never was a man named Jesus. But that would have very little consequences for my view on the world.

I also think it is possible that I am wrong in the other direction. In that case, there once was a man named Jesus, who was the Son of God and did a lot of miracles before he died on the cross and resurrected. I just don't consider that very likely.

[Winstonm]

Quote

Rik

P.S. I doubt anyone is interested, but my belief is that about 2000 years ago there was a man named Jesus, who came from Nazareth, who had religious opinions that were controversial at the time. I consider the thought that the Roman government decided to crucify him for that (upon instigation from the local religious leaders) entirely reasonable. Even nowadays, governments can kill people for less. But that's where my belief stops.

I consider it perfectly possible that I am wrong, and there never was a man named Jesus. But that would have very little consequences for my view on the world.

I also think it is possible that I am wrong in the other direction. In that case, there once was a man named Jesus, who was the Son of God and did a lot of miracles before he died on the cross and resurrected. I just don't consider that very likely.

This was rather amazing for me to read - it was as if someone had entered my own mind and transcribed in logical fashion the thoughts on this subject therein contained.

[Winstonm]

Quote

"There are roman records for one thing, and literally thousands of documents referring to it. Execution of a man claiming to be God was Big News."

Unless there is some recently uncovered truth about which I am ignorant, my understanding is that one of the BIG questions about an historical Jesus is that the Romans - notorious for keeping records - have zero mention of the arrest, trial, or death of said Jesus. There is record of there ever being a town, city, or village in the area named "Nazareth". No historian who lived during the same time as Jesus recorded any mention of him, his teachings, or the great throngs who came to hear him speak.

The literally thousands of documents are religious in nature and not from contemporary sources - they are all second-hand reports recorded after the fact.

I still consider well-documented to be an overbid.