For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

As D-P said, Ehrman in his field on analyzing ancient texts is one of the best. But his "evidence" for his jesus being historical is the same shit as all of the others and it is not convincing.

But he got a lot of his evidence for Jesus existing from the way he analyzed those ancient texts. Paul's letter to the Galateans is one of the ancient texts which he's now using to 'prove' that Paul knew Jesus's brother in real life. Isn't it possible that his scholarship was compromised because he's always been convinced there was an historical Jesus?

You had best ask yourself what he means by a "historical jesus." That's a little shaky, too. Ehrman sees jesus as a apocalyptic preacher but without the miracles and all the other holy horseshit that got tacked on.

An ordinary man who didn't perform miracles and rise from the dead is the only kind of historical Jesus there could have been. Why does everyone assume that if I mention a possible historical Jesus I'm talking about a divine being? I'M AN ATHEIST.

The problem with that is that there is no evidence at all for that view. The only stories of "jesus" are the god stories with all of the magic tricks. Ehrman's speculation on other stories is no more valid than your own because we do not have any such stories.

He got his so called evidence by analyzing all those ancient texts and deciding what they really meant before Christians fiddled around with them. This is why I'd find someone else's work if I was arguing that Jesus didn't exist.

The trick is to evaluate disparate pieces of information and try to fit them together and when you do that you can not make mistakes such as you did when you said that 3 Roman historians mentioned jesus. They did not. They mentioned xtians.

I said that Tacitus's report was about what Christians believed, not that it proved Jesus actually existed.

If you examine the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan you'll note that Pliny mentions nothing about any of the main points of xtianity as we now know it.

Why would he mention anything about Christian beliefs when he was asking how to go about prosecuting Christians? He and Trajan would have known what Christians believed so there was no reason for them to have a theological discussion about it in their letters.

But neither Trajan nor Pliny gives a hint that xtians were a bunch of raving arsonists who burned down the capital when both were boys. Were Tacitus' account true one would imagine that their attitude towards xtians would have been a bit harsher. But it isn't.

If Tacitus's fire of Rome story is true, including the bit about the Christians, (which might be a later addition) it's very likely that Trajan and Pliny didn't believe that the Christians were responsible. The full account explains that the Roman citizens thought Nero had ordered the fire to be started. In the end he blamed the Christians to stop the rumours and had a lot of them executed in horrible ways.

Tacitus Annals Written 109 A.C.E. Book XV

A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire.

These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.

And to this conflagration there attached the greater infamy because it broke out on the Aemilian property of Tigellinus, and it seemed that Nero was aiming at the glory of founding a new city and calling it by his name.

But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.

Why would executing Christians in horrible ways have stopped the rumours? Maybe there's a clue in the last few lines of the fire story.

Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

Nero made sure that the executions were seen by a lot of the Romans who were accusing him of starting the fire himself. Maybe they thought it was better not to mention it again while he lived in case they ended up as the next spectacle.

You have to THINK about these anomalies, Ape.

But there mightn't be an anomaly if you look at the way Tacitus worded his account.

"A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain,"

"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt".

It suggests that everyone suspected Nero had just picked an unpopular group of people to be scapegoats.

Anyway, as you still haven't invented a way for Christianity to get started without an historical Jesus I'll have a go myself. People will have to read the full discussion about Yeshu ha Notzri by following the link but I'm just going to quote the bit which is relevant to my invention.

There are several interesting references to a Yeishu ha Notzri (note the resemblance of the name to "Jesus of Nazareth"), who traveled around and practiced magic during the reign of Alexander Janneus, who ruled Palestine from 104 to 78 BCE. As these references are Talmudic (from the Baraitas and the Gemara), and therefore presumed by Christian scholars to be anti-Christian; Christian apologeticists have simply dismissed them as referring to someone else or being fabricated propaganda. But if they are genuine, and they really do refer to the Jesus of whom the Christians speak, they add evidence to the claim that the Jesus of Nazareth story is really based on the life of Yieshu ha Notzri, possibly the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness." Evidence points to him being the founder of the Notzri as the sects were known in first century Palestine, and as the Jesus Movements to modern scholars.

But the pristine version, (of the Talmud) still used by Jewish scholars, gives us some rich detail. Yeishu ha Notzri was considered by the temple authorities of the time to be a troublemaking heretic, and when they had finally had enough of him, they put him on trial. He was convicted of heresy, sentenced to wander the city for 40 days, with a crier going before him, shouting that if anyone had reason why he should not be executed, they should come forward. When no did, he was stoned to death, and his body hung from a tree on the eve of passover, in 88 B.C.E. Note the death on the eve of passover. Note also the hanging of the body from a tree - at the time, a sign of despicability, with its resemblance to the crucifixion myth.

It doesn't matter if Yeishu ha Notzri really existed because we're going on the assumption that Jesus didn't exist. All it would need is a Jewish sect whose members believed that Yeishu ha Notzri had been a real person.

One of the members - I'll call him Fred - developed schizophrenia and had delusions of YHN talking to him and saying he was the son of God. Fred's knowledge that the Romans crucified criminals was incorporated into his delusions so he believed that YHN had been crucified by Pontius Pilate. As Yeshua was a common name at the time his delusions also told him that YHN's real name was Yeshua. Bits and pieces of YHN's story were combined into a jumbled history of Yeshua along with the idea that Yeshua must have been resurrected because Fred was having a conversation with him.

Fred was thrown out of the sect so he went to the Gentiles and the rest is history. (Paul of Tarsus was based on him).

PS: I edited this post because I missed out a line from Tacitus's story of the fire of Rome which might or might not be real history.