Evidence: The Gathering

[TheRocketSurgeon]

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Yes. But you're (deliberately?) missing the point. Ehrman is an atheist. Coming to the conclusion that Jesus was an actual, living person does not in any way make it more likely that the Gospel accounts of him were any more than a myth created by his followers after the fact, and perpetuated by Paul, as Ehrman's work points out in analysis of the (legitimate) epistles of Paul to the early churches.

Reliance on Tacitus' stated policy of sticking only to documentation and not to "hearsay", when discussing his reference to the Christian sects, ignores that he is essentially discussing them in-passing. His earlier comments about the source of the fires is of no note, as it only references the source he got for the reasons behind the fires, and he is careful to document where he got that information. It is an enormous stretch to take an overall policy when regarding history (as the Annals  are not about religious sects, but about the actions of the emperors) and apply it to a passing description of the claims of those being executed for religious mischief. There is no reason he would have documented the details of their particular religious practices, in his side-reference to the execution of the Christians, during a wider discussion of Emperor Nero. Tacitus saw all cults of Rome as "mischievous superstitions" (etc), because that was his job. He documented the various cults of Rome, and notes the Christian sect as just one more such cult. It is only the importance of Christianity, post-Constantine, that makes us take note of that one passage at all. 

I know you were just citing the author, but I did list volume 15.38 (which he references) in my own citation of Tacitus, specifically to show how his reference to sources was so far removed from his reference to the Christians. Whether he got his information from the records of the testimonies of the Christians about to be executed or from Josephus in their "circles" makes little difference in terms of this discussion, except that Josephus would have known more Christians directly. It sheds no light on the question of whether the information is sourced from (now lost, if they ever existed) Roman records about Pilate and the alleged trial of Jesus. 

What does shed light on the question of whether official Roman records about Pilate were used is the question of why Tacitus (who, as you say, was so careful when dealing with official records) would use the incorrect title of Pilate at the trials. Pilate held both jobs at different points in his career, so it would be understandable if second- and third-generation Christians got his title wrong (Annals was written 80+ years after Christ's alleged execution, and Josephus' Antiquities was 60 years later), but there is no way that the Roman offical account of the trial would get the title at the time of the trial  wrong, when referring to Pilate. Roman accounts recorded at the time of the trial  would not have made a mistake about his present rank, even if it had changed during the course of his career, as some have argued. Arguments that there was no effective difference between Procurator and Prefect ignore that the Romans would not have seen it so, since Tacitus himself records the moment when (in 44 C.E.) Procurators were given the power to govern provinces. This strongly implies that his source material was not a Roman record of the trial events alleged, but of allegations made by later Christians or those who had interviewed Christians about why they believed what they believed. And that is what is seen in both Tacitus and Josephus' accounts, generally (once you remove the obvious interpolations added to Josephus).

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TL;dr version - Nothing Tacitus wrote indicates what O'Neill speculates about in his writing, regarding the source of the side-note about executed Christians and/or the historicity of the source of their religious beliefs, in that passage. It does lend credence to the idea that Jesus was a living person, and that his second- and third-generation worshipers at least believed that he was executed by Pilate, but nothing else.

Bart Ehrman discusses Tacitus at length in this post in which he destroys mythicist Richard Carrier:

http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/

He also discusses the "dying and rising gods" theory.

Let me know what you think.

I read the whole section on Tacitus, and I can't find where he says one thing I disagree with, or that isn't the position I hold (except to note that he seems to have shifted in my direction a little bit, since writing his book). I have never argued that the Tacitus passage in 15.44 was an interpolation (if you don't know, it means "written-in later, by Christian forgers", as they clearly did with Josephus), and consider the passage to be genuine, with the only question being what Tacitus meant and where he got his information. I have always disagreed with Carrier that Prefect and Procurator were "the same thing", since in light of that argument it makes no sense for Tacitus to have noted that in 44 CE, Procurators were given power to govern provinces. If they were "effectively the same thing", as Carrier argued and Ehrman dissected, such an order would have been superfluous, and certainly not noteworthy even if it was a clarification-order.

Indeed, Ehrman specifically states that my claims here, about the problems with reading Historicity into the works of Tacitus, regarding the source of T's information about the trial of "Chrestus" by Pilate, are accurate, at least according to the email he got and posted from his respected colleague James Rives:

Quote: "I've never come across any dispute about the authenticity of Ann. 15.44; as far as I'm aware, it's always been accepted as genuine, although of course there are plenty of disputes over Tacitus’ precise meaning, the source of his information, and the nature of the historical events that lie behind it. There are some minor textual issues (the spelling 'Chrestianos' vs. 'Christianos', e.g.), but there’s not much to be done with them since we here, as everywhere in Tacitus’ major works, effectively depend on a single manuscript."

That is effectively my entire position. So I'm not sure what you wanted me to read in that blog.

I skipped the "dying and rising gods" theory section of the blog article and went straight to the Conclusion, since A) that section was huge, and B) it's not really what we're discussing right now (and I have said I don't swallow Carrier's arguments on most of these issues, except for information relating to how the ancient Hebrews saw the celestial beings in a broader sense than we mean it today, which is hardly unique to Carrier).

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You might enjoy this recent interview Ehrman gave:

http://ehrmanblog.org/how-jesus-became-g...nist-hour/

[Cyberman]

Not especially. But thanks for asking.

I hate it when sales people hover and keep offering to help.

There's an annoying little box on benefits claim forms which asks "Do you require help to look for work? [YES][NO]
If 'no', why do you not need help?"

I know that Randy isn't going to be the human equivalent.

[Pat Mustard]

Thanks for actually making an argument for the skeptic position. It's pretty rare than anyone here actually does that, so I appreciate your time and effort.

Actually, Randy, you constant and abject failure as a person, it is infinitely more common than the arguments you have made in favour of yhwh in this thread (and if this thread is indicative which I've no reason to doubt that it is, ever), seeing as you've made a grand total of NO arguments in favour of yhwh.

[Randy Carson]

Bart Ehrman discusses Tacitus at length in this post in which he destroys mythicist Richard Carrier:

http://ehrmanblog.org/fuller-reply-to-richard-carrier/

He also discusses the "dying and rising gods" theory.

Let me know what you think.

I read the whole section on Tacitus, and I can't find where he says one thing I disagree with, or that isn't the position I hold (except to note that he seems to have shifted in my direction a little bit, since writing his book). I have never argued that the Tacitus passage in 15.44 was an interpolation  (if you don't know, it means "written-in later, by Christian forgers", as they clearly did with Josephus), and consider the passage to be genuine, with the only question being what Tacitus meant and where he got his information.

Rocket-

I consider your remarks above to be good news...you accept the passage from Tacitus as being genuine. You might also consider that scholars also accept the Testimonium to be genuine IF the obvious additions are removed. And even after trimming them out, the TF is quite supportive of the existence of the historical Jesus.

No wonder Ehrman, O'Neill and all competent scholars reject the views of the Jesus Mythicists such as Fitzgerald and Carrier.

Unfortunately, this forum is chock-full of folks for whom mythicism is the lazy man's way out of dealing with the strong arguments of Christianity...if Jesus never existed, then no need to even TRY to come up with an explanation of the Five Minimal Facts, for example.

I have always disagreed with Carrier that Prefect and Procurator were "the same thing", since in light of that argument it makes no sense for Tacitus to have noted that in 44 CE, Procurators were given power to govern provinces. If they were "effectively the same thing", as Carrier argued and Ehrman dissected, such an order would have been superfluous, and certainly not noteworthy even if it was a clarification-order.

Indeed, Ehrman specifically states that my claims here, about the problems with reading Historicity into the works of Tacitus, regarding the source of T's information about the trial of "Chrestus" by Pilate, are accurate, at least according to the email he got and posted from his respected colleague James Rives:

Quote: "I've never come across any dispute about the authenticity of Ann. 15.44; as far as I'm aware, it's always been accepted as genuine, although of course there are plenty of disputes over Tacitus’ precise meaning, the source of his information, and the nature of the historical events that lie behind it.  There are some minor textual issues (the spelling 'Chrestianos' vs. 'Christianos', e.g.), but there’s not much to be done with them since we here, as everywhere in Tacitus’ major works, effectively depend on a single manuscript."

That is effectively my entire position. So I'm not sure what you wanted me to read in that blog.

Nothing specific. I just thought you might be interested.

BTW, one or two of the members of this forum are in the habit of posting the Chrestianos/Christianos image found at Wikipedia as if they have discovered the smoking gun or something. Rives suggests that there is nothing to that.

You might enjoy this recent interview Ehrman gave:

http://ehrmanblog.org/how-jesus-became-g...nist-hour/

I'll give it a look. In return, here's a Catholic Apologist's review of the book: http://www.catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/...cal-review

And btw, thanks for your courteous dialogue.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Rocket-

I consider your remarks above to be good news...you accept the passage from Tacitus as being genuine. You might also consider that scholars also accept the Testimonium to be genuine IF the obvious additions are removed. And even after trimming them out, the TF is quite supportive of the existence of the historical Jesus.

No wonder Ehrman, O'Neill and all competent scholars reject the views of the Jesus Mythicists such as Fitzgerald and Carrier.

Unfortunately, this forum is chock-full of folks for whom mythicism is the lazy man's way out of dealing with the strong arguments of Christianity...if Jesus never existed, then no need to even TRY to come up with an explanation of the Five Minimal Facts, for example.

I don't think the evidence of Jesus from Tacitus and Josephus (even if you include everything that isn't clearly interpolation) is so clear as you're making it out to be, or as Christian theologians like to make it out to be, but I do accept that there likely was an historical Yeshua ben Yosef, son of a carpenter who became a traveling rabbi, though I'm much less certain about the crucifixion narrative. Reading it all for myself, the clearest conclusion I could come up with is that T&J were citing from Christian witnesses and relaying the accounts verbatim, rather than working from what we'd think of as official or historical records, and I think the other tales in the gospel stories just stretch belief a bit too thin on things we'd have definitely gotten reports of from neutral sources, had they happened. Pay close attention to Ehrman's explanation of the timeline in which the things we (you) now take for granted as canon, because they were not the original point of view.

Nothing specific. I just thought you might be interested.

BTW, one or two of the members of this forum are in the habit of posting the Chrestianos/Christianos image found at Wikipedia as if they have discovered the smoking gun or something. Rives suggests that there is nothing to that.

I was definitely interested. Thank you!

And I agree that, given the context, it seems unlikely that he was referring to someone else, despite the commonplace name of Chrestianos. It's the source of the information and what it "proves" that I quibble with.

I'll give it a look. In return, here's a Catholic Apologist's review of the book: http://www.catholic.com/blog/trent-horn/...cal-review

And btw, thanks for your courteous dialogue.

Will do. And if you watch the interview, Ehrman addresses his critics, as you'll see (well, hear), including pointing to some of the best counter-arguments from people he calls "good scholars" (or something like that), as well as a response book he is in the process of generating. He also discusses it on his blog.

And you're welcome.

I'm personal friends with the former head of the University of Kansas Religious Studies department, Dr. Paul Mirecki, another agnostic Biblical historian similar to Ehrman. He was kind enough to let me audit his course on The History of the Bible, even though I wasn't a KU student.

This is one of his books. He also helped to translate some of the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi. Most of my views come from discussions with Dr. Mirecki, and are why I'm so close to Ehrman's position, I suspect.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bible-Context-...1626615292

I don't mention it just as a way of name-dropping, but by way of explaining that A) this is how I know these things, and not from reading internet forums, as has been suggested in one of these recent threads, and B) as a way of pointing out that, once I learned a lot more about first- and second-century culture/history in that region, I was surprised that I ever was able to look at things the way I did while I was a Christian.

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Okay, I finished reading the article. I really need to read the whole Ehrman book, instead of the excerpts, interviews, and external discussions I've been relying on, because everyone keeps summing up his position differently. I'd be especially curious to know why he doesn't think the disciples thought he was God in human form until after the resurrection, given that even his enemies kept asking Jesus if he was God. Clearly, if we're to take any information from the Gospel narratives as valid, then at least some people were of that opinion during his lifetime! Please keep in mind that I am discussing these events under the presupposition that the crucifixion reported to J&T are real, and that we can lend at least some credence to the earlier Gospels of Mark and Matthew, which is all we need to presume for this idea. John is so different in tone that I think it's clear evidence of the rate at which the myth built upon itself (not the myth of Jesus' existence, but of his divinity, miracles, and claims) from its early stages in Mark. In other words, what has to be answered is what Jesus thought when he answered (in Mark) that he was indeed the Messiah and the Son of God, did he mean what that same phrase meant by the time of John. Is it more likely that Jesus thought he was the earthly Messiah, from Isaiah, and a Son of Adam (son of man; adam=man) as well as the Child of God. (Even you might refer to yourself as such, as a way of saying you are a Christian, just as you refer to God as your Father. That doesn't make you God or Jesus.) Thus it is critical to look at the progression of the idea through time, and while I applaud Ehrman's efforts in doing so, I think his entirely historical approach, leaving out all theology and only looking at the history, doesn't give the full picture needed to complete the puzzle. It's a topic I'd love to discuss with him over a long lunch.

The author of that article does a poor job of separating out the "when" of each of the books he's citing, as though he's looking back through a lens of the whole canon at once from the present, rather than considering each in its yearly context. If we were discussing this issue at the Christian church in Jerusalem, just before the Romans razed everything, we certainly wouldn't be discussing the items in the Gospel of John, for instance. And while he raises some good points about Ehrman's conclusions about "getting the ideas up the ontological totem pole", I don't think Ehrman has reached the right conclusion on that point, either. So I guess I don't agree with E as much as I thought... I suspect strongly that some of the Disciples thought Jesus was just the earthly, Jewish version of the Messiah, but I'm sure others vehemently argued that he was not just the earthly Messiah, and taught their audiences that he was always God incarnate. His claims like the ability to forgive sins, which Isaiah says only God can do, would have bolstered that idea in the minds of his followers, but then again, a lot of things only God can do are done in the Old Testament by prophets like Elijah... which is likely why Jesus is also compared to him.

Since Jesus' execution (even with resurrection/ascention) put the kibbosh on the hypothesis that he was the earthly, warrior-king Jewish Messiah--thus Pilate's execution for rebellion, since he wouldn't say he was not King of the Jews, as they put on his cross, according to the story--that left only those who had always argued that he was God after all, even though Jesus never says that (except in John, which as I pointed out, comes much later). So it's not a huge "ontological totem pole" to climb, but a matter of elimination. The ones who thought he was God got the last say because the ones who thought he was the Jewish Messiah (as I think Jesus himself did) and heir to Elijah were silenced crushingly by the death. This is a good reason to invent the resurrection and appearance stories out of whole cloth, as well.

[Randy Carson]

I don't mention it just as a way of name-dropping, but by way of explaining that A) this is how I know these things, and not from reading internet forums, as has been suggested in one of these recent threads, and B) as a way of pointing out that, once I learned a lot more about first- and second-century culture/history in that region, I was surprised that I ever was able to look at things the way I did while I was a Christian.

This jumped out at me, I suppose, because you're saying you are now in possession of some information that you did not have when you were a Christian - information which has convinced you that Christianity is untrue.

What is that information, specifically?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I don't mention it just as a way of name-dropping, but by way of explaining that A) this is how I know these things, and not from reading internet forums, as has been suggested in one of these recent threads, and B) as a way of pointing out that, once I learned a lot more about first- and second-century culture/history in that region, I was surprised that I ever was able to look at things the way I did while I was a Christian.

This jumped out at me, I suppose, because you're saying you are now in possession of some information that you did not have when you were a Christian - information which has convinced you that Christianity is untrue.

What is that information, specifically?

I'm sorry, I thought I was being clear. The information is the fact that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (and of course Acts, which dovetails with Luke and was most likely written by the same person) were not all written at once, by the disciples themselves, soon after the death of Jesus and then distributed among the faithful immediately after Jesus' death, as I had envisioned while a Christian; most Southern Baptists pretty much see the Canon as a single piece, essentially all handed down in a King James leather binding with all 66 books together, and don't consider the first- and second- century environment in which they were penned, both in historical terms and in terms of how people wrote back then as compared to how we write today. None of what I learned is even particularly radical, outside of fundamentalist circles, it's just that I did not have that information, upon which for form my ideas about how the New Testament was written, why it was writen, and how it was edited/assembled into our modern Canon.

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Addendum: If you're interested in more of the specifics, it's a lot more than I'm willing to hash out in an internet forum, but there are dozens of books on the subject of first century culture, history, and writing styles. However, if you're talking specifically of the Gospels and their history, Aractus actually did a good job of summarizing most of it here:

http://atheistforums.org/thread-36295-page-7.html

http://atheistforums.org/thread-36295-page-10.html

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Second Addendum: It occurs to me you may have been asking what exactly it was that convinced me that the Biblical stories were not an accurate or believable description of God's interaction with mankind. In that case, I'm referring to realizing that the human race is not 6000 years old and extant throughout the historical timeline, but are actually a blink in the history of the universe, and that it makes no sense for God to have waited to reveal Himself through the first >97% of the time Homo sapiens have been around (that's using Francis Collins' 100,000 year number; I actually think it's closer to 200-250K), only to appear to one particular Bronze Age tribal sheepherder people, and just happening to share all their values, instead of appearing to the Chinese, the Kelts, the Malians, the Sumerians, the Dravidians, the Aryans, the Hyksos, the Egyptians, the Etruscans, the Greeks, the Hittites, the Inca, or any of the major civilizations that have come before. Or to all of them, everywhere and often, so we wouldn't slaughter each other in the name of the "right" set of beliefs. The Judeo-Christian story just doesn't make sense to me on an evolutionary timeline, no matter how you dress it up.

[abaris]

I don't think the evidence of Jesus from Tacitus and Josephus (even if you include everything that isn't clearly interpolation) is so clear as you're making it out to be, or as Christian theologians like to make it out to be, but I do accept that there likely was an historical Yeshua ben Yosef, son of a carpenter who became a traveling rabbi, though I'm much less certain about the crucifixion narrative.

What Tacitus does say is, christians are followers of Jesus, who got crucified in the times of Pilate. That's what he says and he says that after hearing or talking to christians. And here we are at the fundamental Randy failure to understand that they didn't check and recheck back then. History and oral accounts were taken at face value. So, Tacitus says, christians are followers or Christus of Chrestus, because they told him so or because he heard it say. Not because he himself had any evidence of it.

We were over this about a million times. It just didn't sink in. Same goes for Josephus, by the way. The passages that aren't later forgeries.

Both authors are what we call secondary sources. They retell what others were telling. They weren't there to watch and observe, like Pliny the Younger with Mount Vesuvius. But as opposed to Tacitus and Josephus, we can verify Pliny's account with geology, vulcanology and archeological findings. He's a primary source.

[Randy Carson]

I'm sorry, I thought I was being clear. The information is the fact that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (and of course Acts, which dovetails with Luke and was most likely written by the same person) were not all written at once, by the disciples themselves, soon after the death of Jesus and then distributed among the faithful immediately after Jesus' death, as I had envisioned while a Christian; most Southern Baptists pretty much see the Canon as a single piece, essentially all handed down in a King James leather binding with all 66 books together, and don't consider the first- and second- century environment in which they were penned, both in historical terms and in terms of how people wrote back then as compared to how we write today.

I agree with you about the KJV, but I' a FORMER Protestant who's been Catholic for 35+ years.  

However, I'm not sure I understand what issues troubled you regarding the writing of the gospels.

Mark may have been written around AD 45; John around AD 95. Matthew, Luke and Acts were sprinkled in between. Why would it be a problem if there was spacing between them? Did learning this scandalize you?

And, yes, I think there is every reason to believe that the gospels were written by the traditional authors. I've made that argument before, so I'll hide it below...but one point before you click the button...does the gospel live and die on the basis of traditional authorship? I would argue that it does not. Consequently, while pointing to the authors as true eyewitnesses is a PLUS for the Christian case, it is not a required piece of evidence.

The upshot of all of this is that two things you cite above as contributing to your departure from the faith - date and authorship - should not have been and should not be a problem for you.

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Who Wrote the Gospels?

While the historical reliability of the New Testament is not dependent upon knowing with certainty who the authors of the gospels were, it is indisputable that if the gospels can be shown to be written by eyewitnesses or by men who had access to eyewitnesses, the argument for the reliability of the New Testament as a whole is greatly advanced.

So, who wrote the gospels? Were they written by the men whose names we traditionally associate with these works within a lifetime of Jesus? Or were they written by “schools” which formed the gospels on the basis of their own traditions many decades later?

Evangelical author Dr. Craig Blomberg answers these questions in unambiguous terms:

“It’s important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous. But the uniform testimony of the early church was that Matthew, also known as Levi, the tax collector and one of the twelve disciples, was the author of the first gospel in the New Testament; that John Mark, a companion of Peter, was the author of the gospel we call Mark; and that Luke, known as Paul’s ‘beloved physician,’ wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.”

Blomberg goes on to say: “There are no known competitors for these three gospels. Apparently, it was just not in dispute.”

Dr. Mary Healy, associate professor of Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, agrees.

“[Authorship of the gospels] is a very important question. It’s something that the Church has held consistently since the beginning is that the gospels are of apostolic origin which means that they were written either by apostles or by apostolic men – meaning men who were closely associated with them – and that’s the basis on which we have a firm confidence that the gospels really do reliably tell us who Jesus Christ was, and what he did and what he taught.”

Both Blomberg and Healy offer questions which must be answered by those who deny the traditional authorship of the gospels including:

• Why would copies of gospels circulate anonymously all over the Roman empire for decades and then suddenly be ascribed to the authors we know today unanimously without dispute in the second century?
  
• When the gospels were being read in the liturgy, how would they have been distinguished one from another if they did not have names such as “The Gospel of Mark” or “The Gospel According to Luke”?
  
• Why attribute a gospel written for a Jewish audience to Matthew, a man who would have been hated as a Roman collaborator by that audience, unless it was true that Matthew wrote it?
  

The latter question is particularly interesting today because of the popularity of “gospels” that were not included in the canon of inspired scripture. These fanciful accounts of Jesus, which were written centuries later, were commonly ascribed to more prominent members of the Early Church; thus, we have gospels according to Peter, James, Mary and Thomas among others.

Apart from these logical considerations, is there any evidence that the gospels were, in fact, written by their namesakes? The answer is yes, and here we turn to the historical writings of three ancient authors, Papias, Irenaeus and Origen.

Papias (d. ca. AD 100)

Little is known of the life of Papias. He may have been a hearer of the Apostle John and was a disciple of  Polycarp who was himself a disciple of John. Eusebius tells us that Papias was the Bishop of Hierapolis and a contemporary of Ignatius of Antioch. His writings are typically dated from about AD 95-125. In his preface, Papias states:

I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.

Having conducted his research, Papias writes the following concerning Mark:

And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements.

Of Matthew, Papias writes:

Matthew put together the oracles [of the Lord] in the Hebrew language, and each one interpreted them as best he could.

Irenaeus (AD 130-200)

Irenaeus was Bishop of Lyons and a former disciple of Polycarp. In a brief passage, Irenaeus corroborates Papias concerning the authorship of Matthew:

"Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the Church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus in Asia." (Adversus Haereses 3.3.4)

Origen (AD 185-254)

"Among the four Gospels, which are the only indisputable ones in the Church of God under heaven, I have learned by tradition that the first was written by Matthew, who was once a tax collector, but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, and it was prepared for the converts from Judaism, and published in the Hebrew [or Aramaic] language." (as quoted by Eusebius, H.E. 6. 25.3-4)

From the foregoing arguments and ancient testimonies, we can conclude that the synoptic gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and that these accounts were based on either direct or indirect eye-witness testimony.

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Second Addendum: It occurs to me you may have been asking what exactly it was that convinced me that the Biblical stories were not an accurate or believable description of God's interaction with mankind. In that case, I'm referring to realizing that the human race is not 6000 years old and extant throughout the historical timeline, but are actually a blink in the history of the universe, and that it makes no sense for God to have waited to reveal Himself through the first >97% of the time Homo sapiens  have been around (that's using Francis Collins' 100,000 year number; I actually think it's closer to 200-250K), only to appear to one particular Bronze Age tribal sheepherder people, and just happening to share all their values, instead of appearing to the Chinese, the Kelts, the Malians, the Sumerians, the Dravidians, the Aryans, the Hyksos, the Egyptians, the Etruscans, the Greeks, the Hittites, the Inca, or any of the major civilizations that have come before. Or to all of them, everywhere and often, so we wouldn't slaughter each other in the name of the "right" set of beliefs. The Judeo-Christian story just doesn't make sense to me on an evolutionary timeline, no matter how you dress it up.

This is a Protestant problem, Rocket...not a Catholic one. Yeah, Luther, Calvin and others wandered off the reservation 1,500 after Peter was named the first head of the Church, and the kinds of issues that you had problems with are the result of fundamentalist thinking that OUGHT to be rejected.

But that doesn't mean that ALL of Christianity is flawed. Only the heretical versions of it are.

[Randy Carson]

I don't think the evidence of Jesus from Tacitus and Josephus (even if you include everything that isn't clearly interpolation) is so clear as you're making it out to be, or as Christian theologians like to make it out to be, but I do accept that there likely was an historical Yeshua ben Yosef, son of a carpenter who became a traveling rabbi, though I'm much less certain about the crucifixion narrative.

What Tacitus does say is, christians are followers of Jesus, who got crucified in the times of Pilate. That's what he says and he says that after hearing or talking to christians.

What is the basis for this claim, abaris? Do you have any evidence or scholarship supporting your statement?

Did Tacitus reveal his source in any of his writings? As Tim O'Neill pointed out in the article to which I have linked many times, Tacitus despised Christianity, and there is little reason to believe that he would have talked to them personally...especially in light of the fact that he would not have trusted them to be reliable in their testimony.

And here we are at the fundamental Randy failure to understand that they didn't check and recheck back then. History and oral accounts were taken at face value. So, Tacitus says, christians are followers or Christus of Chrestus, because they told him so or because he heard it say. Not because he himself had any evidence of it.

In the absence of any support for your bald assertion that Tacitus interviewed Christians, we cannot just assume that he did so.

We were over this about a million times. It just didn't sink in. Same goes for Josephus, by the way. The passages that aren't later forgeries.

Both authors are what we call secondary sources. They retell what others were telling. They weren't there to watch and observe, like Pliny the Younger with Mount Vesuvius. But as opposed to Tacitus and Josephus, we can verify Pliny's account with geology, vulcanology and archeological findings. He's a primary source.

Again, please provide some scholarship to support these assertions. Links to articles written by real PhD's and not people like Acharya S who have no academic standing.

Thanks.