Why are other civilizations ignored in the Bible?

[discipulus]

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DeistPaladin, do you agree with historians when they say that there are two events subject to "almost universal assent"? These two events being the baptism of Jesus by John and Jesus' crucifixion by the order of Pontius Pilate.

That is what I was asking.

Do you agree with their conclusions regarding those two events? Yes or no? We need to come to a consensus on this.

I'm not sure why we "need" to come to consensus in order to have a discussion. If by your "need", you mean to say that you want to know my views on the subject matter, I'll be happy to further elaborate.

I need to nail down what you or others mean by "baptism of Jesus by John (the Baptist)". There are a few elements to the story as related in the Gospels:

1. That John effectively knelt before Jesus, declaring himself merely a "forerunner" and that Jesus was the awaited messiah.
I reject this assertion for many reasons.

First, the accounts of John the Baptist's ministry detailed by Josephus indicate he had a significant following and there is NO mention of John telling anyone that he's merely the warm up act. There is NO mention in Josephus that John the Baptist pointed to anyone else, let alone Jesus.

Second, the followers of John the Baptist continued to be rivals of the early Christians, apparently not getting the memo that their leader told them under no uncertain terms that Jesus was the awaited messiah. In fact, John the Baptist has followers to this very day. This behavior makes no sense if the Gospel claim that he pointed to Jesus is true.

Third, the habit of incorporating and assimilating religious icons of rival religions is a fairly common practice. Muslims would later do this with Jesus, claiming that he told everyone he was a forerunner of Muhammad yet somehow Christians strangely refused to listen. When you understand why you reject Islamic claims about Jesus, you understand why I'm equally skeptical of Christian claims about John the Baptist.

Fourth, the put down of John the Baptist escalated notably with each successive Gospel account. In Mark, he declared himself to be just a forerunner. In Matthew, he at first refused to baptize Jesus as it was not his place but did so when ordered to by Jesus. In John, he never baptizes Jesus at all. This is exactly what we'd expect to see if the whole story was just religious propaganda to incorporate John the Baptist and thereby assimilate his followers.

2. That there was a booming voice from above, The Holy Spirit descended from on high, yatta yatta.
I reject these supernatural claims.

3. That John the Baptist may or may not have baptized Jesus along with many others.
OK. It may be so. I can't prove it didn't happen. What evidence is there that it did happen?

So you see, there is no "yes or no" on this question. You're asking complex questions about ancient history, our understanding of which with regard to Jesus is muddled by folklore and mythology.

And the other part of your claim is that Jesus was crucified by Pilate. Here you have some ground to stand on with what I consider the strongest piece of evidence that there is some sort of man behind the myths:

This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator, Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.

There are a few reasons I have to be skeptical but I'm willing to let all that go for now. This is a 2nd century and oblique reference to Jesus, so much that it doesn't even mention him by name. "Christus" means "the anointed one" or "the Messiah".

For now, for the purpose of our discussion, I'm willing to accept that Jesus was crucified by Pilate.

Are you ready to debate something now?

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I did not ask you if you were willing to accept that Jesus was crucified for the sake of argument. I asked if you agreed with what historians say about those two events.