I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Eilonnwy]

Special pleading again. Incomparable examples. Jesus was a peasant in Galilee, not Caesar. There were many magicians at the time, and this was nothing special. People who hadn't eyewitness experience of Jesus, and especially non-Jews, would likely confound Jesus with a magician, or an obscure sage, foolish Iudean, heretic, or any other number of things. As Graham Stanton says, "There is general agreement that, with the possible exception of Paul, we know far more about Jesus of Nazareth than about any first- or second century Jewish or pagan religious teacher."

You wouldn't know special pleading if it smacked you upside the head. You think you know the logical fallacies but you apply ones you think sound like what you want and apply them. Special pleading requires a lack of criticism, a lack of standards of evidence. I, on the other hand, am applying a rigorous standards of evidence, in fact demanding better evidence. Learn the logical fallacies before you attempt to say anyone is using them.

As to why we could expect there would be little documentation outside of the Jewish, religious literature of the apostles; here are some of the reasons.

The non-Christian sources for the historical truth of the Gospels are both few and polluted by hatred and prejudice. A number of reasons have been advanced for this condition of the pagan sources:

* The field of the Gospel history was remote Galilee;
* the Jews were noted as a superstitious race, if we believe Horace (Credat Judoeus Apella, I, Sat., v, 100);
* the God of the Jews was unknown and unintelligible to most pagans of that period;
* the Jews in whose midst Christianity had taken its origin were dispersed among, and hated by, all the pagan nations;
* the Christian religion itself was often confounded with one of the many sects that had sprung up in Judaism, and which could not excite the interest of the pagan spectator.

It is at least certain that neither Jews nor Gentiles suspected in the least the paramount importance of the religion, the rise of which they witnessed among them. These considerations will account for the rarity and the asperity with which Christian events are mentioned by pagan authors. But though Gentile writers do not give us any information about Christ and the early stages of Christianity which we do not possess in the Gospels, and though their statements are made with unconcealed hatred and contempt, still they unwittingly prove the historical value of the facts related by the Evangelists.

We need not delay over a writing entitled the "Acts of Pilate", which must have existed in the second century (Justin, "Apol"., I, 35), and must have been used in the pagan schools to warn boys against the belief of Christians (Eusebius, Church History I.9; Church History IX.5); nor need we inquire into the question whether there existed any authentic census tables of Quirinius.

Doesn't matter. Jesus is not even mentioned as "That annoying fuck", so to speak. The Bible claims he had massive sermons, people followed him, he performed many miracles in front of people. And none of that, NONE was recorded at all.

You can't speculate about evidence if it isn't there. If it isn't there then you must come to the conclusion that either it never existed or was destroyed. Sucks if it was destroyed, but you can presume because you think there was destroyed evidence that any assertion you make is true, because the truth is, you don't know. Extraordinary claims REQUIRE extraordinary evidence. If you want to tell me that a dude named Jesus walked around, maybe did some preaching, etc... That's believable and not really of any consequence either. But if you're going to claim your messiah existed at specific times and did miracles and had hordes of Jews listening to his sermon, there needs to be far more evidence than a few gospels 40 years after he died. This is basic standards of evidence.


[quote='Jon Paul' pid='26812' dateline='1250563247']
Again, that's the most pessimistic view. That's not needed, unless you really want it to be a pessimistic scenario, which of course you do. The account we have at hand can be said to have been written down as early as 15 years after his death even with the first versions of the first Gospel, and even earlier than that with Q and the first writings. In either case, the writings took place within the life of his Apostles and contemporaries.

Once again, I'm requiring evidence. Doesn't matter if you think I'm pessimistic, good for you. I, on the other hand, would rather have proper hard evidence for believing something is true. And you know what? If you were in a court of law today, innocent and being accused of murder, you would too.