The problem with Africanus is that his work is not extant and is mainly found in the writings of that noted xtian fraud, Eusebius.  Hence there is a credibility problem.

We do have the "priestly courses inscription"

http://www.textexcavation.com/priestlyco...ption.html

but again...much as with the earlier Tel Dan stele...people tend to see what they want to see.

Quote:Fragment 1 has the putative mention of Nazareth; it was dated by Professor N. Avigad to the 3rd or 4th century

Now, we know that after 135 the jews were booted out of Judaea by Hadrian and that is when they began to move into Galilee.  It is quite probably that settlement at Nazareth began at that time as they sure as shit would not have gone to Sepphoris or Tiberias which were fully Greco-Roman towns complete with temples which have now been excavated.  Nazareth is 5 miles or so from Sepphoris.  Close enough, as the saying goes, without being too close.

It's an easy trap to give the bible more credit than just a random piece of shit crazy book. The idea that jesus existing is the "default position" if it's unclear is evidence for this bias. It's hard for me to take christians scholars seriously, because they already assume that not only the mundane but supernatural shit in it is true. That's not an objective stance methinks!

I think even non christian historians can fall for this, with the aura of power the bible has.

But yeah, what does HJ mean? If you set the bar low enough you can maybe drag his sorry corpse over it, but really it's not much of an achievement.

And I discount all opinions different to my own, to keep it simple.

But I don't know shit really so just ignore my fevered rantings!

(March 31, 2015 at 4:46 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote: Yep, and Christians do the same thing with God. They make a plausible argument for a deist God, and then they claim to have proven Yahweh.

We could ask the same question about the inspiration for the Biblical flood story
- flood that covered the whole Earth
- flood like the Black Sea being filled
- once in a lifetime flood in Mesopotamia
- ordinary experience with flooding that many cultures experienced

Where do you draw the line between history and myth? I think that is what Alex K was saying in regards to Jesus?

But a lot of that we know simply never happened.  We know for a fact that there was never a flood that covered the whole Earth.  We know there was never a flood that covered all of the Middle East.  We have records of floods at Ur and Kish and other places that simply do not line up temporally.  The Black Sea claim is just the latest example of Christians scrambling for evidence they can twist to fit their pre-existing beliefs instead of following the evidence to a conclusion whether they like it or not. This is why we have to check all of their claims to see if they are actually so and in virtually every case, they are not.  The only cultures that report flood myths are the ones who live in coastal or flood plain areas.  Peoples who lived inland very rarely ever had flood traditions at all.  When you examine the myths of those who do tell stories about floods, they have little, if anything, in common.  Of course, the  Christians won't mention this because it gets in the way of their narrative.

Christians, and indeed other religious groups, are quite desperate to get from point A to point B, but they can't get there without some massive leap of illogic and they get mad at us for pointing out how irrational their ideas really are.

While the primary sources for Jesus' life can't be considered "objective" (historical record rarely, if ever, is), objective evidence for his existence can still be gleaned from them. Examples such as the cobbling together of a virgin birth narrative that places Jesus' delivery in Bethlehem while he was commonly regarded as a Nazarene, or the clumsy attempts to side-step the significance of his baptism by John the Baptist, suggest a historical core to the story. I've come to the conclusion that those who deny Jesus' existence shoulder a much greater burden of proof that involves a lot of handwaving and dismissal of evidence for no other apparent reason than to remain consistent in their prior bias, and reach conclusions which require more improbability than the basic thesis, that a Galilean named Jesus influenced others who then organized a church.

Quote:Yep, and Christians do the same thing with God. They make a plausible argument for a deist God, and then they claim to have proven Yahweh.

Yeah. the universe needs a divine creator. Therefore Jesus. Checkmate atheists.

I don't deny him, I just say he has not met his burden. I don't need to make a positive claim "he didn't exist" any more than I need to say that about Sauron. I'm a-HJ just like I'm atheist. I'm not making a claim myself. When I say "he is myth" it's shorthand for a-HJ. Sorry for confusion for anyone who might be listening to my drivel.

Jesus, if you're listening, I'm saying your bullshit! Well, I have no reason to think you're not bullshit. What you gonna do about it?

Quote:Examples such as the cobbling together of a virgin birth narrative that places Jesus' delivery in Bethlehem while he was commonly regarded as a Nazarene, or the clumsy attempts to side-step the significance of his baptism by John the Baptist, suggest a historical core to the story.

Why?

Aren't they more properly examples of shitty literature?

Nah, I don't buy all that stuff. Dissecting motives and saying a fake would have been different... Not for me If it works for you, cool. It's all a giant matter of opinion, and I'm only offering mine.

I mean, I could make arguments about Harry Potter regarding the "motives of the author". Who's to say it's really fiction?

The fact that we don't know who the author is or why they wrote is makes it less reliable, not more, in my estimation.

I'll keep making nail puns for now.

(March 31, 2015 at 5:09 pm)robvalue Wrote: I don't deny him, I just say he has not met his burden. I don't need to make a positive claim "he didn't exist" any more than I need to say that about Sauron.

To be consistent you would have to be fairly skeptical about the existence of any individual who ever lived in the ancient world, and such extreme caution about Homer or Jesus or Socrates or anyone else---when there are reasons to think some facts can be more ascertained than others, at least in terms of probability---requires further justification than simply saying, "People sometimes write fiction."

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(March 31, 2015 at 5:14 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:Examples such as the cobbling together of a virgin birth narrative that places Jesus' delivery in Bethlehem while he was commonly regarded as a Nazarene, or the clumsy attempts to side-step the significance of his baptism by John the Baptist, suggest a historical core to the story.

Why?

Aren't they more properly examples of shitty literature?

I don't think so, otherwise we'd expect to find someone in the first century who admitted as much. The impression instead is that Christians believed in a real person who had recently died at the hands of real people.

The problem is that we can't put our fingers on any writings from the first century.

When pressed they invent bullshit stories like "Q" but no one has ever seen so much as a fragment of any such work.  With the mania that later xtian scribes preserved what they considered early writings why do we not see such zeal in the first century?