Mary's 10 Year Pregnancy!

[Statler Waldorf]

First, asshole. Ehrman does not accept the TF as Eusebius wrote it in all its technicolor glory. No, he "accepts" (so he says) the watered down version of it which jesus-freak scholars have cobbled together after realizing that Eusebius' version was such an obvious fraud that no one in their right mind....which lets you out....could buy it.

1. I never said Ehrman accepted the entire TF, I said he views it as a valid reference to Jesus (as he does the reference in Book 20), which he does.
2. Ehrman does not believe Eusebius had anything to do with the interpolations found in the TF.
3. Learn what you’re talking about.

There is only one significant problem with the variant of TF which Ehrman asserts.

IT DOES NOT EXIST.

This is an absurd standard that no historian accepts; we do not have the original writings of Julius Caesar, Tacitus, or Suetonius either.

What exists is what Eusebius wrote.

How do you know Eusebius wrote it?

The first quotation, from the Demonstratio Evangelica most probably pre-dates the Ecclesiastica Historia by at least 10 years and probably closer to 15. That probably explains the differences between the two as Eusebius had forgotten exactly what he had forged by that time. But, WTF. By then he had the ear of Constantine and anyone who gave him any shit about it would have found himself dead, in fine xtian fashion!

The only problem is that nobody (besides mythicists who will believe anything they read online) believes any of this conspiracy nonsense is true. They believe pieces of the TF are interpolations but the passage was an original reference to the historical Jesus by Josephus.

Anyway, this is what exists. The watered-down TF was concocted by ignorant protestant fuckwits for the same reason that Eusebius forged the original. It was embarrassing to have nothing in the historical record about their fucking godboy. What is particularly galling about Ehrman is that, as D-P schooled you on above, he is a man who has written extensively about forgery in xtian holy horseshit but when it suits his purpose he is quite content to overlook it and pretend that the watered-down TF exists when he knows it does not. Ehrman damages his credibility by doing so. You have no credibility so you have nothing to lose....and you never will.

*Yawns* You just destroyed your entire argument by pointing out that someone like Erhman-a self-proclaimed agnostic who has no self-interest in the validity of the TF- views it as a valid reference to Jesus. Here we have a scholar who alleges that portions of the New Testament are forged and yet is not willing to argue that the entire TF is a forgery, that tells us just how ridiculous your viewpoint is. Go join the Holocaust deniers- nobody takes you and your ilk seriously.

As has been pointed out numerous times, Origen...a predecessor of Eusebius' at Caesarea wrote 75 years earlier and addressed the very book in question (Bk XVII of Antiquities of the Jews) and came away saying:

Suggesting this somehow proves that the TF was not in Josephus’ writings at the time of Origen is a fallacious argument from silence. You can base your arguments on irrationality all you want, but I’ll stick to rationality myself. It’s rather amusing that you choose to fight your battle solely concerning the TF when Josephus also mentions Jesus in Book 20. Either way, even if the TF were a complete forgery (which historians do not believe it was) we still have a 1st Century Jewish historian mentioning Jesus; I hear the death knell ringing. Jesus existed, the Holocaust happened, and yes we walked on the Moon- I am sorry.