The objections presented to you thusfar are that the sources don't speak to the existence of any jesus, while offering contradictory narratives - and that there is an element of forgery in -at least one-. You don't see that as a problem?

His Majesty why are you having a hard time understanding this. Tacitus is not reporting this as fact but as a representation of what this particular cult believed. He reports other cults in much the same way.

(November 24, 2014 at 7:01 pm)His_Majesty Wrote: Dude, you have to look at the entire freakin' context.

If you recognise that, why did your wheels spin when I tried to get you to do it with the TF passage in Josephus? Which double standard are we flying with here?

(November 24, 2014 at 7:53 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Are you really this stupid?

Damn the ad hominems, I asked you a freakin' question...how do you know that George Washington was the first President of the U.S....you cannot begin to answer that question without basing it off on what you were told.

So answer the question......how do you know that George Washington was the first President of the U.S??

(November 24, 2014 at 7:53 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: You don't even have that (it is, in fact one of the questions we seek to answer here), and given that it's one element of what you're trying to prove, it's absolutely question begging to assert it here.

Actually we do...we have the book of Acts, which Jospehus corroborates by saying that followers of Christ were called "Christians" by the population.

Keep the feeble objections coming.

(November 24, 2014 at 7:53 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: But please, do continue as if your entire argument isn't fallacious.

So you are willing to think that the vast majority of historians are fallacious? Okey dokey.

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(November 24, 2014 at 8:12 pm)Stimbo Wrote:

(November 24, 2014 at 7:01 pm)His_Majesty Wrote: Dude, you have to look at the entire freakin' context.

If you recognise that, why did your wheels spin when I tried to get you to do it with the TF passage in Josephus? Which double standard are we flying with here?

I repeat: I'd like to see the passage myself. (Something like that)

(November 24, 2014 at 3:55 pm)His_Majesty Wrote:

(November 23, 2014 at 4:43 pm)Jenny A Wrote:

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Josephus, for example is almost the only source available for the Jewish revolts in the 1st Century. He was an eyewitness to much of the what he says in Jewish Wars.

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[Josephus] was a Jewish general who became a traitor and afterward a Roman proponent and Jewish apologist (an uneasy position if there ever was one). Historians keep this in mind when assessing the veracity of Josephus. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/...ephus.html Quite naturally he obviously alters his own part in events. And his descriptions of his own involvement differ in Life and Jewish Wars. http://www.josephus.org/FlJosephus2/bloomRevolt.htm

He also patterns his writing on those of Thucydides and Polybius and exaggerates an invents great speeches and dialogue in much the same way that they did. http://www.josephus.org/FlJosephus2/bloomRevolt.htm Archeology does and does not bare him out.

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Notice that none of the above has anything to do with Jesus. It has to do with the puzzle of determining what happened a couple thousand years ago when when we have only limited biased sources. Consequently, there are many historical controversies over events in the 1st and 2nd centuries.

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The book you are quoting is Jewish Antiquities. It is a history of the Jewish people. In it Josephus attempts to provide a picture of the Hebrews that will make the Greeks and Romans find them worthy of study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquities_of_the_Jews
emphasis mine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiquities_of_the_Jews

And? What the hell does any of that have to do with the passage in question?

You suggested nay sayers found Josephus unreliable only when he is talking about Jesus. You're wrong. The Antiquities is generally not all that reliable for the reasons stated above. His goal in Antiquities was to make the Hebrews look worthy of Greek and Roman study. As I noted in the part of my post you pulled from your quote, he goes so far as to have Moses teaching the Egyptians science. When discussing Jesus, what he really wants to get in there is there is that there was a wise man accepted by the Greeks and that there are still Greeks following him.

Quote:He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks.

In other words, we have no way of knowing if he had any information about Jesus, or if he was just reporting the existence of Christians and what Christians had to say about themselves because a Jewish sect accepted by Greeks would be a big deal to him.

(November 24, 2014 at 3:55 pm)His_Majesty Wrote:

(November 23, 2014 at 4:43 pm)Jenny A Wrote: That plus the obvious Christian later interpolations in the Jesus text in Josephus, and it shouldn't surprise you that there is much controversy about it.

Well, there shouldn't be any controversy now. We know it was interpolated and we know what parts were interpolated...fine, you can have that...but what about the rest of the passage?

We are not throwing out the baby with the water here.

The question is whether there is a baby in all that bath water. Once there are interpolations, it's always hard to tease out the original. This case is no different.

Others have picked up Pliny the Younger, et. al. so I'll let those answers stand for mine.

You wouldn't know an ad hominem if it bit you on the ass.

You're stupid, because you compare the existence of a person for whom no contemporary source exists, versus on where a great many contemporary sources do.

So, yes, it would appear that you really are that stupid. Which, incidentally, is not an ad hominem - it's an inescapable conclusion one reaches when reading your arguments.

As I have better things to do at the moment, I'll leave the arguments to my counterparts here, and resume the regularly scheduled mocking you so richly deserve.

We know george Washington was the first from multiple contemporary and non contradictory sources that tell us that George Washington was most likely the first President

I'm sure we have letters and other papers he wrote too, plus artefacts depicting him, such as coins for example. A Jesus signature on a sales docket or something would at least be impressive.

(November 24, 2014 at 8:40 pm)Stimbo Wrote: I'm sure we have letters and other papers he wrote too, plus artefacts depicting him, such as coins for example. A Jesus signature on a sales docket or something would at least be impressive.

Oh hell I'll settle for Jesus having written via scribe to be honest.