(October 25, 2009 at 3:21 am)Minimalist Wrote: 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.
Actually, Minimalist, I think it is you that has the blinders on. It seems to me that you have presupposed Christianity wrong, looked at the evidence, found a way to reject any reasonable evidence/reasoning for Christianity, and then concluded that Christianity is wrong because there is no evidence.
Let me ask you about Luke here. Was he an accurate historian in Acts and the Gospel of Luke?
(October 25, 2009 at 3:21 am)Minimalist Wrote: 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.
Any why would they? As you said, they were on trial for holding meetings when they were not supposed to. Wouldn't one expect the questioning and tesimony be limited to what they did at the meetings? This seems pretty reasonable to me. Why would you expect more?
(October 25, 2009 at 3:21 am)Minimalist Wrote: 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.
I think you read way too much into this. Pliny's letter was for a specific reason. There was no need in this letter to mention the writings of Tacitus or the accusations of the Christians burning Rome, if it in fact did happen. So, to me, this is not convincing evidence that the quote from Tacitus is forged or wrong. You seem to think that if it (the accusation of Christians by Nero mentioned by Tacitus) really happened, Pliny would have mentioned it in this letter to Trajan. Why would you expect that?
