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Thanks for the support, AmbiguousGuy. Angellous and Jay seem to think that mockery is their only option, and I think I agree with them. I'm a bit surprised that these guys could take six posts in response to my single post without actually responding to anything I said.
If you think that there were fallacies in my argument, then indicate where you think they were. That involves a little more work than merely blurting out names of fallacies without actually tying them to anything I said.
Josephus isn't a real historian like Tacitus!
You are absolutely certain that a man named Jesus lived around Jerusalem from 0 to 35CE. And that he was the model for the biblical Jesus.
OK, but I was limiting my remarks to the OP, which I think is easily refuted. The problem with Josephus is that he, like other contemporaries, was writing well after the events in question. So the OP reduces essentially to the claim that Jesus probably existed because Josephus believed he existed. I do not see that as sufficient evidence for historicity. One needs to have some understanding of what Josephus used as source material, since he himself was not a witness. Did he check his sources in any way? Tacitus was a contemporary who gains more respect from modern historians precisely because he did make an effort to verify his historical claims (albeit not necessarily his brief--and controversial--references to Christ). Josephus was something of an amateur historian with a known tendency to exaggerate or embellish some of his claims.Turn yourself into a true believer for me -- an actual victim of the current Realer hysteria.
It is a good question. I do not know. I think that the most convincing evidence for the historicity of Christ comes from Paul, who allegedly made reference to James. However, if Paul believed Christ to be a real person, why did he not give more details about the man around whom his cult centered? The fact that he was so vague about that aspect of the man tends to weaken the case for historicity.
No, I have the same question. It makes the case for historicity sound less plausible to me.
The OP is just about Josephus, and I thought it a rather bizarre claim to make. Jay's behavior and that of other pro-historicists has not helped to defend the claim. Josephus could simply have taken what believers claimed about Jesus at face value. Most scholars seem to think that Pliny the Younger provides the most solid non-Christian evidence for the existence of Christians (albeit not Christ), and Tacitus was Pliny's friend. Pliny seemed somewhat unfamiliar with the cult, although it had supposedly been scapegoated by Nero for the burning of Rome earlier in the 1st century. Tacitus said very little about the Christians, and what he said was unsourced. In fact, Tacitus' references to Christ are controversial, but he could have gotten his information through communication with Pliny. Who knows? Most of these arguments for and against historicity depend on large doses of speculation.
Please substantiate that assertion.
My assertion was that Pliny the Younger provided the most solid evidence for the existence of Christians, not Christ. In fact, few people really take Pliny, Tacitus, or Suetonius as evidence for the historicity of Christ, but Pliny was the earliest to write something that referred to them. Pliny wrote in 112 AD, whereas Tacitus wrote in 116. (Note the passage on authenticity in my Wikipedia reference.) The passages by Tacitus and Suetonius are somewhat more controversial. For example, Tacitus seems to have gotten Pontius Pilate's title wrong. Pliny actually seems to have established Roman policy and procedures for dealing with Christians in later years. That is, his treatment of Christians became a precedent.
No, your assertion was that
Jay, do you know how the word "seem" affects the meaning of an assertion? It appears to me that that is the case, because very few scholars really question Pliny the Younger's references to Christians in the same way that they question others. In fact, the first time I encountered this assertion--that Pliny is considered the strongest (i.e. least controversial) non-Christian reference to Christians was in The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, a book by Robert Louis Wilken. But I don't think that he had any objective evidence for the claim, just his impression as a recognized historian in the field.
Thanks for your attempt at a contribution to the discussion, angellous. I wish you more success on your next attempt.
Thanks for your attempt at a contribution to the discussion, angellous. I wish you more success on your next attempt.