The First Century Void

[Amarok]

Road will just keep repeating there must have been earlier copies. And screeching argument from silence Because the evidence is not there. Or insisting that the church was not a dogmatic organization that held it's documents as unquestioned .And lastly he will squeal that since criticism occurred in the 18th century it can't be valid regardless of the evidence.

[Succubus]

eta, moved.

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Yeah, RoadRunner79, thinks that during hundreds years of Christian reign were also times of liberal exchange of ideas where anyone could have questioned teachings of the church as well as dogma and also write books conflicting their teachings and politics.

A line of fine print that would void a 16th century life insurance policy:

6)a. Are you vociferous in your critique of the church.

[Amarok]

Yeah, RoadRunner79, thinks that during hundreds years of Christian reign were also times of liberal exchange of ideas where anyone could have questioned teachings of the church as well as dogma and also write books conflicting their teachings and politics.

Not to mention the fact that hundreds of ancient documents were essentially left to rot. Because they didn't conform to the churches teachings. Including catalogues worth of scientific texts from the Romans and Greeks. And libraries didn't even need to be purposely time has done an awesome job of that. But as I said it a non issue weather it's the 18th or 56 century the evidence is the evidence.

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And as Richard Carrier points out

There certainly was, as there always was.
Even in Paul’s day we see seething schisms and attacks from within and all around, as the sect had already fragmented into several, calling each other anathema and servants of demons and false Christs. That would have been even more the case a lifetime later. The Gospels, written in the gap period, exhibit different competing theologies and perspectives. They are in fact arguments against each other (as I show in OHJ, Ch. 10). But they effect that through allegory and fake history (Acts is another classic example: see OHJ, Ch. 9). So we have to infer what the real arguments were, and often can’t tell. No one tells us directly.
So there was a lot going on and being said in that lifetime, that we don’t get to hear. Whether anyone recorded it (wrote it down) is a different question; but no one even talks about it in the second century. And they show no sign of knowing what was really happening in that period (e.g. Papias relates a history of the writing of the Gospels that is impossible and thus not even remotely true; so they either didn’t even know what happened in that previous lifetime, or they decided to delete it and replace it with myths).
So it could have all been deleted by time, and not deliberate erasure. Deleted all the same. We don’t get to hear it all the same. But proposing no one wrote anything, no letters in a whole human lifetime of the church, is very unlikely: it makes no sense that we would have rampant letter writing in Paul’s lifetime (much more than was preserved, as Paul himself references letters we don’t have), and none whatsoever the next lifetime, when the sect was larger and even more diverse and thus even more at each other’s throats, and even more butting heads in competition across three continents and two empires.
And this is why we don’t know what the reaction was to the publication of the first Gospels. Neither approval nor censure, verification or falsification, we don’t get to hear, and thus don’t get to know, what anyone’s reaction was. We therefore cannot claim to know it was uniformly positive. Though we know it can’t have been. Because we have evidence in the second century that gives us clues of mythicist Christians the century before (e.g. The Ascension of Isaiah; 2 Peter). And the Gospels not only deliberately contradict each other on fundamental things (which no one could have simply been fine with or ever questioned or challenged: the very fact that each Gospel rewrote the ones before to say different things is evidence of disapproval of the original things said), they say wildly false things anyone could have refuted had they regarded them as making any true claims at all (e.g. that a horde of zombies descended on Jerusalem; that Jesus was famous across the entire province of Syria; that the sun went out for three hours). If anyone noticed who knew the truth, we don’t get to hear what they said. And if no one who knew the truth noticed, we can’t claim to know what they would have said. Except the obvious: that those things didn’t happen.
More on what evidence there must have been, even in Paul’s lifetime, much more so the next, see my sections on exactly that in OHJ, Ch. 8

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But min there had to lots of other copies of the TF because there had to be.

[RoadRunner79]

Yes... the argument from silence, which is difficult, and some think just fallacious.  Also shown to be factually incorrect, by early hostile references.  We discussed the one passage in Josephus, which you couldn't show is a forgery (although does seem to have some interpolation).  We could discuss the others, by I think you have even less to dismiss that evidence; which show you to be incorrect.  And would probably just result in more name calling against me.

Have a nice day!    I'm happy with the way the discussion, or lack there of went.  I think it shows how weak the mythicist case is, and what discussion with them, often falls to.

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One other thing that came up over the course of the discussion, was the excuse for the lack of evidence (or silence) of the mythicist position until the 18th century.  The excuse is that the Church destroyed books, which went against it's message.  This is mostly false, except for perhaps the heretical writing of Arius which where targeted during the end of Constantine' reign. There where also a number of times that Christians either didn't have the power to do what was claimed or where the targets of such acts themselves.

I suggest doing some research before passing on such myths.... look at the evidence.
http://christianthinktank.com/qburnbx.html
http://jameshannam.com/literature.htm

What about the giant book burning the Christians did in the book of Acts?

Where they burnt there own books.  I've deleted music, that I no longer found the lyrics tasteful to my beliefs.   I hardly think, that this qualifies to the case that was attempted to be made.

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It doesn't surprise me, that he used it more than once....  I don't have the fragmented works in my library, to see the context.   And he may even be the source of the flowery and barely disputed interpolations; what he added in his works, being later added by other scribes copying Josephus. This seems to be a much simpler explanation.  However, this is hardly a case, to say that he forged it into Josephus (when he was citing Josephus) about a case, which doesn't support your narrative.  He then would have had to distribute these forgeries, in order to make one small point (which wasn't against the mythicist postion by the way; that isn't heard of until much later).  And then hope that no one had a original copy.   I don't see a need to insert more complicated assumptions.   And you are not giving any evidence which requires it.

In case you didn't know it those sources you cited are fakes.  For one thing the name "Jesus" didn't exist until about 1630-1632 and it was used only one time in a lawsuit.  The Bible writers liked it so they inserted it into all of the passages that used Yeshua or another name for the zombie character.  

So, since your sources use the name Jesus they were either written after the middle of the 17th Century or else they are very poor translations.  In any case their veracity is doubtful.

Yes.... Just from a back of the envelope calculation, I would say that none of the English translations are original.   To call them fake based on this reasoning, seems an exaggeration and somewhat self serving to your case.  You come off to be really grasping at straws at this point.

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Road will just keep repeating there must have been earlier copies. And screeching argument from silence Because the evidence is not there. Or insisting that the church was not a dogmatic organization that held it's documents as unquestioned .And lastly he will squeal that since criticism occurred in the 18th century it can't be valid regardless of the evidence.

What evidence?   And yes, I do believe that there must have been earlier copies than what we have now.   If not, then they where not  written by Josephus, and your case falls apart completely.  


And yes, I do note, that for many here, the argument from silence only works one way.

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Yeah, RoadRunner79, thinks that during hundreds years of Christian reign were also times of liberal exchange of ideas where anyone could have questioned teachings of the church as well as dogma and also write books conflicting their teachings and politics.

I would focus on your case, and presenting evidence for it.  Rather than making assumptions about what I think.   I can speak for myself.

[Amarok]

Let's recap Roads lame defense

1.It's not a forgery. Though fits every textual definition of such as (Quoted)

Reliance on the Arabic version of the Testimonium must be discarded.
Attempts to invent a pared-down version of what Josephus wrote are untenable.
The Testimonium derives from the New Testament.
The Testimonium doesn’t match Josephan narrative practice or context.
The Testimonium matches Eusebian more than Josephan style.

And

The TF doesn’t fit the context of JA 18.62 and 65 (e.g. it does not describe “a disaster befalling the Jews” nor explain the rising tensions between Jews and Romans leading to war).
The TF is implausible from a Pharisaic Jew (e.g. calling Jesus the messiah; saying he fulfilled prophecy).
The TF is improbably brief (just contrast it with the religious controversy immediately following in the JA, covered in eight times more length, yet on a far more trivial incident).
The TF is improbably obscure (contrast how Josephus writes about other sects, teachings, and actions, and how he always explains obscure terms like “Christ” or “Christian”).
The TF was unknown to Origen (despite his explicit search of Josephus for Jesus material in his answer to Celsus) and all other Christian authors before the 4th century.
Rewriting the TF to ‘solve’

And

The content, concepts, and sequence of the TF matches the gospel summary in Luke 24 (Goldberg 1995).
The style of the TF is more Eusebian than Josephan (Olson 2013; Feldman 2012).
And the narrative structure of the TF is not even remotely Josephan, but is a perfect match for Christian creedal statements (in respect to the treatment of time, story, emplotment, and apologetic: Hopper 2014).

http://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/12071

But what the hell it's just conspiracy theory because Christians would have pointed this out because... Or again referring to Carrier

Unlike most other questions in history, the evidence for Jesus is among the most compromised bodies of evidence in the whole of ancient history. It cannot be said that this has no effect on its reliability. This does not entail or require any particular ‘conspiracy theory’, however. Of course, the fact of it is so firmly in evidence it cannot be disputed (only its degree); so even if a conspiracy theory were required, it would be more than amply established by the evidence we have. But it isn’t needed, because all that one does need is a sect of fanatical believers who (a) have a common dogma to promote (e.g. that Jesus really lived and really said and did certain things conducive to the doctrines they wanted to promote), as we know the ‘orthodox’ sect did, and (b) have no qualms against destroying evidence (or just not mentioning or preserving it), forging evidence and doctoring evidence, as we again know the ‘orthodox’ sect did (i.e. these are not mere hypotheses, but established facts in our background knowledge). Any such community will organically produce the same effect as a conspiracy, without ever having to conspire to do anything. They do not require any top-down instructions or orders to follow, nor any collusion. If each independently did what made sense to him, each on his own initiative, the effect on the evidence that survives for us now will have been the same. (OHJ, p. 276)

[T]he epistles do reveal the constant vexation of novel dogmas; the devastating events of the 60s did occur; the history of the church is completely silent from then until the mid-90s or later; a historicist sect did later gain supreme power and did decide which texts to preserve, and it did doctor and meddle with numerous manuscripts and even produced wholesale forgeries to that same end—and not as a result of any organized conspiracy, but simply from independent scribes and authors widely sharing similar assumptions and motives. (OHJ, p. 609)

[T]here was no organized conspiracy to doctor the record (except when it came to controlling faith literature, for which we have clear evidence of Christians actively eliminating disapproved Gospels, for example), but this along with all the other cases (above and below) indicates a common trend among individual Christians to act as gatekeepers of information, suppressing what they didn’t like. Which collectively destroyed a lot of information. (OHJ, p. 303)

2.There have to be many imaged copies of the TF that would have to be destroyed .And it can't be the fact there were few and most were lost or destroyed or forgotten .And Origen does not mention it despite having every reason too. And no motivation not too considering he founded the library at Caesarea.( and the documents he did has came from Hegesippus and totally  contradicts  Josephus's account ) . And Eusebius or even more likely his teacher Pamphilus did the deed . And no one either knew the text well enough to counter it. Or didn't have a copy to prove it. So his became the default account and no one question it because why would they?

3. Bart Ehrman. can make good points but when it comes Myth he's proven over and over to be dishonest and happy to engage in slander look at his debate with Robert Price seriously Ehrman.  So Price is a Trump supporter so he can't be believed . Poisoning the Well much

4. As for the Bible was not questioned before this see above. Not mention yeah i'm sure Christians were eager to allow there critics text to survive   .And no that does not make it a conspiracy. No matter how much road tries to hand wave  it as such so he does not have to deal with the evidence.

[Amarok]

Further Crushing of roads derpy but people would have noticed there were no critics argument

http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/Cri...Refut1.htm

[JackRussell]

Try the argument from silence in non religious areas and see what archaeologists and historians do. Any religious person can do this, but you will have to pick some pretty boring subjects.

[Cyberman]

What about the giant book burning the Christians did in the book of Acts?

Where they burnt there own books.  I've deleted music, that I no longer found the lyrics tasteful to my beliefs.   I hardly think, that this qualifies to the case that was attempted to be made.

Did you also delete the music for everyone else, so nobody would have your beliefs offended?

[Amarok]

Christians creating books on magic and sorcery? And burning there own books is not what the passage says .

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Try the argument from silence in non religious areas and see what archaeologists and historians do. Any religious person can do this, but you will have to pick some pretty boring subjects.

Yeah it's pretty textbook apologist tactic. Almost as common as not understanding that being closer to an event does not make an account more reliable .Nor being further away make it less so . Yet they straw man this position on to Jesus skeptics (Wooter for example) while not getting it's contextual . It's not that the "wittiness etc are too late it's the quality of the documents. Both addressed

One Of Many Common Tactics

[RoadRunner79]

Where they burnt there own books.  I've deleted music, that I no longer found the lyrics tasteful to my beliefs.   I hardly think, that this qualifies to the case that was attempted to be made.

Did you also delete the music for everyone else, so nobody would have your beliefs offended?

No... and neither did they in Acts....  Acts was a bad example by that poster.  

I posted a couple of articles... if you have evidence to the contrary then please provide it (i'll check it out).   But it seems that the myth of Christians on a mission to burn all books that disagreed with them; is just that... a myth.

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Christians creating books on magic and sorcery? And burning there own books is not what the passage says .

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Try the argument from silence in non religious areas and see what archaeologists and historians do. Any religious person can do this, but you will have to pick some pretty boring subjects.

Yeah it's pretty textbook apologist tactic. Almost as common as not understanding that being closer to an event does not make an account more reliable .Nor being further away make it less so . Yet they straw man this position on to Jesus skeptics (Name Deleted because the poster requested that you not use it for example) while not getting it's contextual . It's not that the "wittiness etc are too late it's the quality of the documents. Both addressed

One Of Many Common Tactics

Actually proximity to an event does give one an advantage.  Would you trust a witness who wasn't there?     Time can also provide an advantage.   With a greater ability to see a wider view of all the evidence, and time to go over it.  If the time is short, but the proximity is good, then the witness may miss something. 

However, you are going to need evidence, and not just stories made up over 18 centuries later.   Just because it is new, doesn't mean it is better either.   That is a fallacy.