R. G. Price - On the Mythic Jesus

[Minimalist]

LOL.


Maybe its one of those fucking miracles?

[coffeeveritas]

Before you trot out Tacitus and Suetonius know that both of these were 2d century writers.

There’s a lot of first century events we only know about because of those two. History isn’t perfect. They didn’t have Wikipedia back then. We’re missing the vast majority of ancient texts. There may be a lot more info out there that we just don’t have. Also, Christianity was originally just part of Judaism, and outsiders to it may not have realized how different it was. It took time for Christianity to gain mass and differentiate enough for Rome to notice, which we see in the second half of the first century. We do have evidence of first century persecution of Christians, we have extant writings from several first century Christians, including Clement of Rome. We also have Josephus talking about Christians in the first century, which most skeptics disregard due to textual insertions. I can see why people are skeptical of this, since there were obviously things added to the text, however it seems fairly easy to distinguish the parts of the account of Christ that were added. I think it may even be a majority opinion now among scholars that Josephus does contain a genuine account of Christians in the first century that was parenthetically appended by a scribe. Three ancient historians, a letter from the emperor, and dozens of first century theological writings is about as good as it gets in first century history.

Further, Claudius became emperor in 41 after the assassination of Caligula and xtians claim their boy was dead while Tiberius was emperor so to then assert that Chrestus/Christus was in Rome causing trouble years later seems silly even by xtian standards

I don’t think anyone in the Christian community thinks that passage is a reference to Christ actually causing the trouble in person. Jesus never went to Rome. The argument is that “Chrestus/Christus” is what they were fighting about, and we know that Christ was a point of contention in Jewish communities of that time. I’m only 50/50 on this one myself, but quite a few scholars make that argument.

Suetonius, in Life of Claudius, mentions one “Chrestus” and predictably xtians jump on that and say he means “Christus” because what the hell...it’s only 1 letter difference. Well, “whole” and “whore” are one letter different, too and convey completely different ideas . . .
Suetonius also has a brief mention of xtians in the Life of Nero:
“Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.”
. . . In fact, it could easily be a reference to the aforementioned followers of Chrestus ( Chrestianos rather than Christianos) which some well-meaning scribe thought he was correcting because, again, its only one letter difference.

You used the “one letter” argument both ways. I don’t think we have evidence for any group called “Chrestians” or that the Romans automatically appended “ians” on to ever group that followed a specific person. This is a reference to Christian persecution in 64 AD, which makes sense because it corresponds with the great fire and subsequent crackdown.

More to the point, Suetonius does not mention xtians with regard to the Great Fire of 64 which is so near and dear to the hearts of xtians in Tacitus.

Suetonius does mention Christians being persecuted in 64 AD, and he does mention the fire.

Pliny issued an edict forbidding secret meetings and then ended up arresting a group which called itself xtians for violating that order . . .
It would have been wonderful had Pliny expanded upon what he considered “depraved, excessive superstition” ( recall the words of Suetonius!) but he did not. One wonders if he would have mentioned the silly idea that these xtians worshiped a criminal who had been crucified by a Roman magistrate but magically came back to life?

It’s not surprising that Pliny doesn’t elaborate on Christian practices, this letter is all business. He’s writing to the emperor on how to conduct a trial, anything not pertinent to his question is left out. The emperor’s time is precious. Also, it seems Pliny assumes the emperor is already familiar with Christianity, since he just says, “I was never present at any trial of Christians, therefore I do not know what are the customary penalties,” and doesn’t pause to define what the group is. Pliny is not saying he is unfamiliar with Christians, he is saying he hadn’t yet been to a Christian trial and the fact that he used the term “customary penalties” seems to indicate that there was already precedent for dealing with Christians. Also we have an account of someone who claimed to have recanted some 20 years earlier, which Pliny accepts uncritically. This seems to indicate that Pliny is not suspicious of a Christian presence dating back at least twenty years. Also Pliny laments over how far the movement had spread in his province, and how it had begun to seriously affect the Roman cult. He seems to say his reforms are changing things, but that the temples “have been almost deserted . . .” This indicates that Pliny has a substantial and widespread movement on his hands which he is just beginning to deal with (he had only been on the job a year at this point).

We will never know if Pliny had run into a random gnostic group but I have always found this line “sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god “ to be an interesting choice of words. “As to a god” rather than a god himself? Odd.

That seems about right to me. How else would a critical Roman polytheist say it? The Christians were treating Christ as the Romans would treat a god. They were worshipping Christ, like a Christian would do. It fits.

The point of all this is that no where in Pliny’s letter or Trajan’s reply is there the slightest hint of anger with xtians for having burned down the capitol a mere 45 years earlier. You would think that these Roman aristocrats would harbor some resentment for that, no?

Of course not, no one ever really believed the Christians were responsible. Tacitus says, “all the emperor’s largesse . . . did not banish the belief that the fire had been ordered . . . and so, to get rid of this rumor Nero set up as culprits . . . Christians.”Everyone at the time assumed Nero did it, he tried to blame Christians, but apparently no one believed that either because Tacitus knows that Nero was using the Christians as fall guys. The account of Tacitus was out there, and later accounts (Suetonius/ Dio Cassuis) just blame Nero, since that’s the conclusion Tacitus alludes to.

Even more to the point, no other ancient writer...xtian or otherwise...makes reference to that passage in Tacitus, either. . .
The failure of anyone to note Tacitus’ writing on the subject is a clear indication that this passage was a later forgery based on the obscure Severus’ fable of Nero punishing multitudes of xtians.

This is big long debate about the historical validity of Tacitus’s account, but I do believe most historians accept Tacitus. I would have to look up a good defense of him, but off the top of my head I’ve talked to at least two historians who seem to think there are no problems with regards to Tacitus here. This is the kind of thing you could write a dissertation on though, I have no desire to crawl through this one.

Does it not strike you as odd that Pliny would write over 40 years later of his general unfamiliarity with xtians when there were supposedly multitudes of them in Rome itself?

Once again, Pliny was not at all unfamiliar with Christians, he was unfamiliar with the traditional trial practices for dealing with them, as he himself said implicitly, “I was never present at any trial of Christians.” Notice he didn’t marvel over some new religious group, and write to inform the emperor. He just wanted to check what the normal procedure for dealing with them was.

Very thorough Min, not your typical concise post, but you have a knack for these too. I have a meeting to get to, but I'll try to get to the Paul part soon my friend.

[Cinjin]

Kudos to Minimalist and Paladin for the historical info that I'm thoroughly enjoying.

[Angrboda]

I'll have to devote some time to reading this thread, but in the meantime I want to add my two cents worth.

First, I don't have a problem with a real Jesus, even with the paucity of literary reference (akin to the doubts about King David prior to discovering a stelae referring to such a one). However, I have a little different take on exactly who this man was. I think it's all too likely, given the commonness of charlatans of the time living by fooling ignorant peasants, that this is a much more likely scenario. Jesus and his disciples would be what in modern parlance are termed grifters. Jesus likely kept them spellbound while the merry band picked pockets or something even more outrageous. Jesus wasn't God. Jesus was a con man. Unfortunately, Jesus or the combined lot decided that they were tired of settling for small scores, and decided to try their act in 'the big tent'. As a result of Jesus' rather obnoxious and preposterous behavior (and likely claims of divinity), he was arrested and summarily executed. His disciples, stunned and fearing that their gravy train had run dry, invented an even more preposterous lie to sell to the gullible. Apparently meeting success with this new act, they and their wild tale went on to great popularity, being spread from village to village by travelers' word of mouth (and their own "road shows"). As Thomas Paine has noted, given the story of a miracle, the most likely story is a lie. Jesus and his band weren't holy men, but professional liars -- con men, whose only real claim to fame is the gullibilty and a fascination with the unusual that is shared by most ordinary folk, traits amply demonstrated everywhere they looked.

ETA: A couple minor flourishes. First is the question of Judas Iscariot. I suspect that either Judas himself was under the eye of the authorities following Jesus' big act -- perhaps Judas was even a part of it, having the job of stealing something valuable while people were distracted with Jesus' bizarre behavior; or perhaps, he didn't want to go along with the resurrection story and his fellows turned against him, painting him a snitch, and attempting to distance themselves from him lest he really start talking. I'm sure multiple scenarios are viable. Second, it's not uncommon among religious and philosophical literature for followers to write 'in the name of' their founder. It's entirely possible that Jesus was not one man, but rather that the group took turns playing the part, each adding their own ad libs to the part. It would go a long way to explaining the supposed richness of the story if it was a collaborative effort. They may have even "kept Jesus alive" long after his death, no pun intended.

[Minimalist]

There’s a lot of first century events we only know about because of those two. History isn’t perfect. They didn’t have Wikipedia back then. We’re missing the vast majority of ancient texts. There may be a lot more info out there that we just don’t have. Also, Christianity was originally just part of Judaism, and outsiders to it may not have realized how different it was. It took time for Christianity to gain mass and differentiate enough for Rome to notice, which we see in the second half of the first century. We do have evidence of first century persecution of Christians, we have extant writings from several first century Christians, including Clement of Rome. We also have Josephus talking about Christians in the first century, which most skeptics disregard due to textual insertions. I can see why people are skeptical of this, since there were obviously things added to the text, however it seems fairly easy to distinguish the parts of the account of Christ that were added. I think it may even be a majority opinion now among scholars that Josephus does contain a genuine account of Christians in the first century that was parenthetically appended by a scribe. Three ancient historians, a letter from the emperor, and dozens of first century theological writings is about as good as it gets in first century history.

Wiki must be used with caution. Yes, we are missing the vast majority of ancient texts because in the 4th century xtian thugs burned the libraries. That argument is like the definition of “chutzpah” where a man who murders his parents asks for mercy because he is an orphan. However, what evidence do you have for persecution of xtians in the first century? Specifically.

As far as Josephus, it is a forgery...in full. It was recognized as such centuries ago and only recently have desperate xtian scholars attempted to resurrect it for the same reason it was written in the first place....because there are no historical references to “jesus” and when early xtians came to power they were embarrassed by the gap. I guess I need to remind you that 3 ancient historians and a letter from the emperor don’t mention “jesus” at all.

“I don’t think anyone in the Christian community thinks that passage is a reference to Christ actually causing the trouble in person.”

Sorry. There are a lot of nuts out there. Not that I think you are one of them but be careful when you speak in absolutes.

http://users.binary.net/polycarp/jesus.html

“Other secular witnesses to the historical Jesus include Suetonius in his biography of Claudius”

You used the “one letter” argument both ways. I don’t think we have evidence for any group called “Chrestians” or that the Romans automatically appended “ians” on to ever group that followed a specific person. This is a reference to Christian persecution in 64 AD, which makes sense because it corresponds with the great fire and subsequent crackdown.

Hmmm....you edited my comment to delete the part where I said we have no evidence one way or the other. I’ll let that pass.....once.

Suetonius does mention Christians being persecuted in 64 AD, and he does mention the fire.

Now you have crossed into outright falsehood. Suetonius does not mention a date and he does not in any way equate those xtians with the fire.

Pliny is not saying he is unfamiliar with Christians, he is saying he hadn’t yet been to a Christian trial and the fact that he used the term “customary penalties” seems to indicate that there was already precedent for dealing with Christians.

You seem to be straying from the point which was about Tacitus’ alleged comment in Annals. Pliny was a lawyer in Rome...if there were trials in Rome he would have known about them. If there were issues in the East with xtians that Pliny stumbled on it hardly matters to the point which is that neither Pliny nor Trajan seem to have a clue that xtians had tried to burn down Rome. Now, either Tacitus’ writing is authentic...which means that Pliny and Trajan were grossly negligent or worse...stupid. Or, Tacitus’ reference is a much later insertion. Add Suetonius into the mix and we have another historian who makes no reference whatsoever to the fire and the xtians.

That seems about right to me. How else would a critical Roman polytheist say it?

If you take Pliny at his word he was questioning these people and I presume he would have written down what they said. Why did they not simply say that “christ” was their god? Again, I find it a curiosity - nothing more.

Of course not, no one ever really believed the Christians were responsible

Now you are just drifting into apologetics. Why did not xtian writers make even a single reference to this passage? If it was there it would have played right into their hands when they were trying to concoct this vast persecution history which they came up with later. In terms of actual edicts we have only 12 years in which Roman emperors actually went after xtians and the vast bulk of that began in the mid 3'd century. Remember, even when Sulpicius Severus did make reference to Nero’s alleged cruelties he had nothing to say about Tacitus, Pilate or Christ.
Feel free to sweep that under the rug, too.

This is big long debate about the historical validity of Tacitus’s account, but I do believe most historians accept Tacitus.

There's a good reason for debate. (See below*) I hate that “most historians” argument. One wonders how many simply do not wish to get into it as it seems unprofitable. Bart Ehrman uses the most historians argument, too and then proceeds to have no more actual evidence for jesus than anyone else. The easy way out is to accept ancient writings at face value. Do you accept that a quarter of a million Gauls came to the relief of Alesia because Julius Caesar wrote that down? Ancient "histories" are full of such exaggerations.

Once again, Pliny was not at all unfamiliar with Christians,

Now you are cherry-picking. Pliny knows so little about xtians that he had to question them and use torture. He is not only unfamiliar with trials but he knows jack shit about them. This argues against there having been "multitudes" in Rome 50 years earlier. Again, not a hint that they were implicated in the great fire of 64 and Tacitus had not published his history at that time. Yet, Suetonius publishing AFTER Tacitus, never has a word to say about it either. I do understand that believers will cling to any branch they can find but I am trying to look at all the facts and ignore the traditional bullshit which has built up over the years.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Highlight_of_MII.png

The Chrestianos/Christianos argument simply will not go away.

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(and I've heard no one so far claiming that Muhammud is actually the result of a conspiracy)

We have no historical evidence for Muhammad. In fact, what we have is the same sort of crap that xtians invented to promote their godboy.


Sorry, Zen, I had promised CV to get to his post. I don't have time to go through yours right now.

But, all religions have a starting point. You should consider that.

[Cinjin]

I am enjoying the shit outta this thread.


Regardless of who's closer to the truth, apophenia or Min (and I do like both theories), it will of course change nothing for me, but it is good reading.

[coffeeveritas]

Yes, we are missing the vast majority of ancient texts because in the 4th century xtian thugs burned the libraries. That argument is like the definition of “chutzpah” where a man who murders his parents asks for mercy because he is an orphan.

Are you blaming the lack of ancient texts solely on Christians? The only books I recall Christians burning are gnostic ones, and some pagan religion stuff (in historical accounts, sadly not in modern day). I have to confess, I am actually not very up-to-date on my book burning accounts, so if you have any good ones I would like to see them. Are you talking about the destruction of the Serapeum? Because there were no books destroyed in that fire.

As far as Josephus, it is a forgery...in full.

Admittedly this is a topic of debate, but there are a large number of scholars on both sides. It's not like someone checked the answer book and told us who was right.

“I don’t think anyone in the Christian community thinks that passage is a reference to Christ actually causing the trouble in person.”
Sorry. There are a lot of nuts out there. Not that I think you are one of them but be careful when you speak in absolutes.

I stand corrected. What I should have said was, "I don't think any SANE person in the Christian community . . ." Haha! oh my fellow Christians.

Hmmm....you edited my comment to delete the part where I said we have no evidence one way or the other. I’ll let that pass.....once.

Oh, that's my bad! I was trying for word economy, but you totally weren't being dogmatic there. Thanks for pointing that out, I do want to try to be fair to everyone.

Now you have crossed into outright falsehood. Suetonius does not mention a date and he does not in any way equate those xtians with the fire.

I should have stated that more clearly. What I was saying there was that the scholars I use as my source have the persecutions that he is talking about dated to 64 AD, and that quite separately, he goes on to mention the fire. I was just saying that both elements are there.

Pliny was a lawyer in Rome...if there were trials in Rome he would have known about them.

He clearly indicates that he did know about the trials, he just says he never bothered to go to one.

If it was there it would have played right into their hands when they were trying to concoct this vast persecution history which they came up with later.

That just sounds like such a conspiracy theory. To be fair, the victor does write the history, but when people talking about changing history it just sounds like DaVinci code or a time travel movie to me.

This is big long debate about the historical validity of Tacitus’s account, but I do believe most historians accept Tacitus.

There's a good reason for debate. (See below*) I hate that “most historians” argument. One wonders how many simply do not wish to get into it as it seems unprofitable.

[/quote]
I was just commenting on the consensus of modern scholarship as it stands right now, but you're right, sometimes people just use that term by way of saying, "I'm right because these people said so," and then chalk it up as a victory. The fact is, sometimes the consensus is wrong, and sometimes the person saying that doesn't even really know what the consensus is. I just don't want to spend 2 hours looking up all the sources to do the textual criticism on this thing, and the fact that I know of some scholars who would back me up here sounds good enough to me. I used it as a lazy phrase. I'm tired.

Speaking of tired, I have to get up early. I love a good discussion though. You're bringing your A-game Min, this is good stuff.

[Zenith]

Hey Min, I keep trying writing replies to this thread and my stupid internet drops out and erases them somehow! Looks like we're both having problems with this thread. Ok, I'm going to try to write a response in Word and paste it, if my internet will stay on for more than two minutes.

well, if you succeed opening the pages while you have internet, then keep them opened always (put your computer on hibernate or something, and keep the internet browser opened with those pages opened). For big replies I use to write in a wordpad document and copy-paste here. And before clicking "Post Reply" I use to copy (Ctrl+C) the text is going to be posted - because the internet browser or the internet may have problem just then, and I don't want my text wasted.
Hope that helps.

P.S.
When the hell do you guys write all that?
I've just seen a full page of replies, and the last time I replied to that was yesterday! I can barely keep up.

[everythingafter]

Are you talking about the destruction of the Serapeum? Because there were no books destroyed in that fire.

I assumed he was talking about the library at Alexandria. It was either ransacked or burned or both thanks to religious chaos between Christians and Pagans. I think this was before bound books came into widespread use, so while they weren't "books" as we know them, they were documents on scrolls, and lord knows what important documents we lost for all time because of religion.

[Minimalist]

The Serapaeum was the last refuge of the Library of Alexandria which had been severely damaged....possibly in an earthquake...in the previous century. What was salvaged was moved to the Serapaeum as a kind of second-string "library." As I suspect that CV will reject any non-christian source for this we'll give him a xtian scholar to bitch about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates_of_Constantinople

Socrates of Constantinople, also known as Socrates Scholasticus,[1] not to be confused with the Greek philosopher Socrates, was a Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret, who used his work; he was born at Constantinople c. 380: the date of his death is unknown. Even in ancient times nothing seems to have been known of his life except what can be gathered from notices in his Historia Ecclesiastica ("Church History"), which departed from its ostensible model, Eusebius of Caesarea, in emphasizing the place of the emperor in church affairs and in giving secular as well as church history.

Socrates' teachers, noted in his prefaces, were the grammarians Helladius and Ammonius, who came to Constantinople from Alexandria, where they had been pagan priests. A revolt, accompanied by an attack on the pagan temples, had forced them to flee. This attack, in which the Serapeum was vandalized and its library destroyed, is dated about 391.

From the Historia Ecclesiastica comes this delightful tale of good xtians murdering Hypatia....like all good xtians do!

On account of the self-possession and ease of manner, which she had acquired in consequence of the cultivation of her mind, she not unfrequently appeared in public in presence of the magistrates. Neither did she feel abashed in coming to an assembly of men. For all men on account of her extraordinary dignity and virtue admired her the more. Yet even she fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them.

The xtian emperor Jovian ordered the burning of the library of Antioch in 364.

The library at Ephesos was damaged by the Goths so it looks like xtians can't be blamed for that one.

Xtian crusaders burned the library of Constantinople during the 4th crusade showing that the propensity for destruction had not been bred out of ignorant xtians even by the 13th century.[/quote]

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Okay, that done, now CV....Pliny does not say that he never "bothered" to go to one. He says: "I have never participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian, it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be punished. "

Xtians were not under suspicion for being xtians....the Romans tolerated all sorts of crazy shit under the guise of religion. They were suspected of sedition because they purportedly would not swear allegiance to Roman gods ( including by this time, the Emperor himself). Both Trajan and PLiny indicate that those who did so swear were pardoned.


But again, you are getting way off the original point which, back in post #16 you said that jesus was well located historically and I challenged you for those historical locations and reminded you that Suetonius and Tacitus were 2d century. Suetonius' comments are insignificant enough to be dismissed but Tacitus is another story.

I then added the Pliny/Trajan correspondence as an indicator that these were two Roman aristocrats who did not seem to know anything at all about the story of xtians burning down the capitol some 45 years earlier. Splitting hairs about Pliny is irrelevant. He did not say anything like "I've caught some fucking xtians...you know the bastards who burned Rome to the ground" and Trajan does not reply " nail those arsonists to the nearest cross. " Anything at all in that vein would be sufficient to say that there was some basis to the so-called Tacitus' reference.

Add in the fact that no one in the ancient world mentions or quotes Tacitus...until the early 5th century when we get a watered down version of it in Severus' Chronica and it begins to look like this was a much later interpolation into Tacitus. We have only two manuscripts of Tacitus, both from the 11th century and both in execrable condition. I've read Annals and there are lacunae all over the place. Of these two manuscripts one covers the first part or Annals and one covers the second. It's a problem and I know that xtians are deeply invested in maintaining that the story is true but there is no corroborating evidence from elsewhere in the ancient world.