Mary's 10 Year Pregnancy!

[Statler Waldorf]

I think he wanted you to provide links, you know evidence and such.

No, that’s just a tactic employed by people when they are losing a debate; try to force your opponent to re-invent the wheel over and over again during the debate. Such information is available to anyone who wants to look it up.

42 authors mentioning Jesus within 150 years…

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Author of Hebrews, James, Peter, Jude, Clement of Rome, 2 Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Didache, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, Fragments of Papias, Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Quadratus, Aristo of Pella, Melito of Sardis, Diognetus, Gospel of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, Epistula Apostolorum, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Apocryphon of John, Treatise on Resurrection, Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Phlegon, Lucian, Celsus, Mara Bar Serapion, Suetonius, and Thallus.

10 authors mention Tiberius...

Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Seneca, Paterculus, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Valerius Maximum, and Luke

This means that both Jesus and Tiberius have 9 secular sources mentioning them. The Jewish carpenter living in Galilee is as well attested to by secular sources as the figurehead of the most powerful empire in the entire world; nothing short of remarkable.

You are lying, to put it plainly. There is no doubt in the scientific community that evolution is the best theory that explains the diversity of life.

Where did I say that was not the majority view? It’s not a consensus though. You can find numerous experts with advanced degrees in the appropriate fields who reject common descent; you could not even find three experts with advanced degrees in the historical community who reject the existence of Jesus. The Jesus Myth is a far more extreme position than creationism.

That isn't a rebuttal

He didn’t make a point requiring rebuttal; I am perfectly justified in answering an assertion with an assertion.

Not exactly a great comparison seeing as we have evidence that the holocaust happened. 6 million jews don't just disappear into thin air. Also we have evidence that 'The Return of the Jedi' was a fictional movie.

And we have more historical attestation for Jesus of Nazareth than we do for Caesar Tiberius.

I think it would help everyone out here if you explained how he's being irrational.

It is irrational to be arbitrary or inconsistent in your reasoning and he is being both.

Inconsistencies

- He rejects the use of early Christian sources to establish the existence of Jesus but accepts the use of Roman sources to establish the existence of early Roman figures.
- He rejects the testimony of early church fathers in regards to Jesus and the martyrdom of Christians but then uses these same church fathers to establish the existence of Christian heresies in the early Church.
- He rejects the use of Josephus as a source for the existence of Jesus but then uses Josephus to establish other historical facts he finds convenient to his position (i.e. the governorship of Qirrinius)
- He rejects using Christian sources in regards to jesus but then uses Josephus (a Jewish source) in regards to the existence of John the Baptist (also a Jew).
- He claims we cannot know who wrote the New Testament gospels and epistles but then accepts the authorship of Josephus’ writings as actually being the historian Josephus without any external attestation to this authorship.
- He claims the New Testament is not well attested (having manuscripts dating to within 60 years of Jesus) but then appeals to the writings of Julius Caesar, Suetonius, and Tacitus which do not first appear until 900-1100 AD.


Arbritrariness

- He applies a different standard to the historicity of Jesus than any of historical figure.
- His criteria for the existence of Jesus is self-serving and not accepted by any practicing historian.

Get the picture?

And I didn't think jesus was mentioned anywhere outside the bible, but then again i don't study history much.

He’s mentioned by nine Biblical sources and 31 extra-biblical sources within the first 150 years.

We'll we know that JFK existed, we did see him get shot on TV

I didn’t, I am not that old. That’s also not proof, I saw John Malkovich get “shot” by Clint Eastwood on TV last night.

If only it were that simple

Unfortunately, it is.

Look up 'The Crusades' I think thats quite a lot of blood

I was born in the 20th Century; so again, no blood (but Christ’s) on these hands.

Hey, Waldork you dumb fuck. You do know...or should be told that your xtian thugs burned the libraries of antiquity but, thanks to Origen we do have a small sampling of some of the comments by Greco-Roman writers like Celsus - the work is Contra Celsus - to see what they thought of your early shithead brethren.

How do you know Christians burned any such libraries?

I must admit...Celsus nailed your sorry ass in Chapter 44.

This is quite amusing that you are now appealing to the words of early Church fathers; we do not have any of Celsus’ writings and Origen’s quotations of him were not available until the 3rd Century so the gospels are far more contemporary with Christ and far better attested to. It’s also quite amusing that not even Celsus believed that Jesus never existed. Fail.

He's a protestant fuckwad. You have to go to the witch trials, the 30 years war and the wars of the reformation, etc for their atrocities.

Simply because you were alive back then is no reason to assume that I was as well. No blood on these hands.

The 10/42 claim has been thoroughly shot down.

Non-sense.

I won't even go into the 42 number attributed to authors that mention Jesus, some of them are highly disputed.

You won’t go into it? How convenient!

I mean, please, Josephus is included in the 42.

Historians (including Ehrman) accept Josephus’ reference to Jesus as a legitimate source.

[hide]

But they got the 10 mentions for Tiberius incorrect by a factor of 10. oops...

“Factor of 10” obviously does not mean what you apparently think it means.

Well, it looks like the list was a bit short. There are actually 44 authors that mention Tiberius, including Tiberius himself.

44 is not a factor of 10 off from 10.

"The contemporary poet Horace (writing c. 21 BCE) mentions Tiberius multiple times and even writes to a military friend campaigning with Tiberius in the 3rd letter of book 1 of his Epistles.

You see, this is the problem when you pull all of your information from people’s blogs, you do not get the entire story. Horace’s mentioning of Tiberius actually comes from Suetonius’ writings about Horace; it never appears in any of Horace’s existing poetry. Of course Suetonius claiming that Horace mentioned Tiberius does not count as a second attestation to Tiberius.

Another contemporary, Cornelius Nepos , also mentions Tiberius’ first marriage in his Life of Atticus.

Actually nearly all of Cornelius Nepos’ writings are lost, most of what we have (including his mentioning of Tiberius) are other author’s allusions to what he wrote. Of course, just like with Horace, this does not count as a separate attestation to Tiberius.

Livy’s history of Rome, though the books dealing with the time of Tiberius are lost, still have book summaries preserved in later Periochae.

Obviously lost works that allegedly once existed do not count as attestation to Tiberius. This seems to be the case over and over again in this list. We have an author who allegedly mentions Tiberius but whose writings are only preserved by another author who is already counted on the list or who writes much later than 150 years after Tiberius. This does not count as multiple attestations to Tiberius. It was a valiant effort but unfortunately falls a bit short.

Kudos for trying!

Waldorf, I know of a few historical quotes that can be applied to you quite well:

Okie dokie.

Seneca the Younger - "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

“The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.” – Psalm 14:1 (ESV)

Buddha - “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

“Whoever sends a message by the hand of a fool
cuts off his own feet and drinks violence.
7 Like a lame man's legs, which hang useless,
is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
8 Like one who binds the stone in the sling
is one who gives honor to a fool.
9 Like a thorn that goes up into the hand of a drunkard
is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
10 Like an archer who wounds everyone
is one who hires a passing fool or drunkard.[a]
11 Like a dog that returns to his vomit
is a fool who repeats his folly.”- Proverbs 26:6-11 (ESV)

Socrates - "Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death."

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”- Romans 1:21-25 (ESV)

and not put all my faith in one of a million religions.

So you do not believe that 2+2= 4 because “4” is just one in an infinite number of other possible numbers?

You can not [sic] impress Waldork [sic] with facts.

You’ve yet to present any.

He is a flaming asshole who believes in a talking snake and a 6,000 year old universe for fuck's sake.

More qualified experts believe in a 6,000 year old Earth than believe Jesus never existed like you believe. That’s hilarious.

Just shit on him. It's all he deserves.

No, it’s all you can do because you have no arguments to back up your absurd positions.