Christ's birthday

[Minimalist]

Are you suggesting that in your view the only valid evidence for the historicity of Jesus is first century writing? In your view can such evidence come from first century historians or does the evidence have to be from eyewitnesses? In your view does the evidence have to come from someone who was not a Christian? In other words, what type of historical evidence would you accept as valid to demonstrate the historicity of Jesus?

Yes, pretty much. You see, here is the xtian paradox. You claim you have this guy who was so dangerous to the establishment that the priests had to break every rule in their own book to get him killed on Passover but, then they were so worried about their law that they had to get the body down in order to give it a proper burial. Yet, at the same time that this dangerous person was being killed no one living at the time paid any attention to him. Not Philo, who wrote extensively on Jewish issues. Not Pliny the Elder who wrote volumes about all sorts of goofy stuff but seems to have missed out on someone that the Romans had crucified coming back from the fucking dead. No one. It is no good trying to claim that Jerusalem was some out of the way little town. It wasn't and thanks to Herod's genius of building a port at Caesarea, Judea was tied in to Roman commerce. Such a story would have spread like wildfire across those trade routes...yet, not a word.

"In your view can such evidence come from first century historians"

Well, they didn't mention him so that is out. The biggest embarrassment of all is that later xtians tried to go back and insert such references into Josephus. Had there been an actual reference why the need to forge one?

In other words, what type of historical evidence would you accept as valid to demonstrate the historicity of Jesus?

Some reference to him from a non-christian source (and if you don't know the reason for that, then read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted and find out just how much your 'holy' books have been tampered with) Roman, Greek or Jewish which indicates that some portion of the story was true and noted at the time. We have nothing along those lines. As I said, the first non-christian mention of them is Pliny. As far as Pliny goes, read it again yourself. Trajan had passed a law forbidding secret meetings. People who were called "christians" were denounced to Pliny for violating that law and they were arrested and questioned or tortured if they were slaves. If you are too squeamish to understand what "torture" means check it out with Dick Cheney. They were not charged because they were christians - they were charged because they were violating the law and told Pliny they were christians. By the way, they also apparently told Pliny that they worshiped Christ quasi deo or LIKE a god or AS IF HE WERE a god... which is certainly an interesting way for a christian to phrase it, wouldn't you say?

I am not really sure what your whole point is with this statement as my whole point in this thread was that Jesus was a historical person and not fictional.

That's because you have your little holy blinders on and are desperately trying to cling to some shred of historicity for your god boy. Here is what Pliny reports:

But they declared their guilt or error was simply this – on a fixed day they used to meet before dawn and recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a god. So far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, they swore to keep from theft, robbery, adultery, breach of faith, and not to deny any trust money deposited with them when called upon to deliver it. This ceremony over, they used to depart and meet again to take food – but it was of no special character, and entirely harmless. They also had ceased from this practice after the edict I issued – by which, in accord with your orders, I forbade all secret societies.

I then thought it the more needful to get at the facts behind their statements. Therefore I placed two women, called ‘deaconesses,’ under torture, but I found only a debased superstition carried to great lengths, so I postponed my examination, and immediately consulted you.

No mention of Jesus, resurrection, Nazareth, Mary, Joseph, Pilate, crucifixion, Jerusalem, temples,
Barabbas, even under torture. Of course, perhaps those parts of the tale had not been written yet.

At best the letter indicates that Pliny may have only just learned what the Christians were doing in their meetings. That is it.

No. Far from "it" it diminishes the notion that the Tacitus reference is legitimate. Had there been "multitudes" of Christians in Rome, accused of burning the city in 64 (Pliny would have been a young child but he would have grown up amid the ashes) who were "persecuted" by Nero it is simply inconceivable to imagine that Pliny, Suetonius and Trajan would not have known about it.
Yet...Suetonius fails to mention it and Pliny and Trajan are actually quite mild in their treatment of christians. Pliny refutes the later forgery which was inserted into Tacitus' work.

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Eyewitnesses at the time would be a good start.

You know, Adrian, eyewitnesses are overrated. I've served on 3 juries and watching a defense attorney rip an eyewitness to shreds does give one a fair understanding that most people are about as observant as a loaf of bread.

But, more to the point, I'm reading a history of the crusades right now and, as it turns out, there are three "eye-witness accounts" of the Speech of Urban II at Clermont which launched the crusades. All 3 were written by men who had attended HOWEVER they wrote at least 20 years after the event. Fulcher of Chartres, Robert the Monk, and Guibert de Nogent. The author notes
" they disagreed with each other, using the speech to reflect their own visions of what they later thought worthy of recognition." This is actually typical of ancient "historical" writing. Ancient authors invented "speeches" for their characters as literary devices to explain the issues. Thus, when Livy writes something like "Fabius Maximus stepped to the podium and addressed the senate as follows...." we can be pretty sure that Fabius did no such thing. There was a notorious shortage of stenographers in the ancient world!

Yet, when you get some xtian reading his bible and he comes to jesus' soliloquy in Gethsemene they never stop to ask, 'who wrote this down?' Did jesus use a dictaphone? Everyone else was asleep so who was taking notes? It's a speech, just like Fabius' speech above, and it serves as a literary device...but it isn't "real." And of course the xtians will shriek bloody murder when this is pointed out to them!