RE: Writings during the lifetime of Jesus?
August 6, 2012 at 2:34 am
(This post was last modified: August 6, 2012 at 2:35 am by Gambit.)
(August 6, 2012 at 2:28 am)Undeceived Wrote:(August 4, 2012 at 7:49 am)Gambit Wrote: So here is my question: Can anyone provide me with examples of people/writings that referenced Jesus, during his lifetime? Any priests, philosophers, leaders, scribes, will do.Let me get this straight. You are looking for records of Christian existence from during Jesus' life because you believe all (several dozen) 1st-2nd century records are bogus and part of a mass conspiracy to invent this "Jesus Christ" character?
Okay, Jesus started his ministry three years before he died. How many documents can we date exactly between 30-33AD? None. Those close are either ambiguous or non-historic.
Though all copies in this time period are questionably later than their original manuscript, we can pinpoint the original date written using our knowledge of how circulation works. We have quotes and cross-references between the Paul's epistles and 1 Peter, as well as Clement. In order for one writer to have known of the others' writings, the manuscript had to already be in circulation. That implies many manuscripts by 90AD, but we only have a few of any 1st century manuscript. Therefore we can conclude that most NT manuscripts have never been found, and that they probably date back close to the time of Christ (they had to reach Rome by 70AD). An extant copy 30 years after the fact is good compared to other biographies, even of famous men like Caesar (900AD is his copy) or Tacitus (1,100AD) or Suetonius (950AD) or Pliny (850AD), all allegedly written around the time of Christ, all Greek and Roman historians with copies 780+ years behind Mark, Matthew and Acts. [ http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/bibmanu.htm ]
Do you trust any of those four historians?
First point me to where I said the part in bold and then we'll continue.
As for the rest of your post, prove that any of that is true; and yet again, we will continue.