RE: Debate with a Christian
March 9, 2014 at 5:16 pm
(This post was last modified: March 9, 2014 at 5:18 pm by *Deidre*.)
(March 9, 2014 at 5:10 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:(March 9, 2014 at 4:32 pm)discipulus Wrote: I linked to the encyclopedia of World Biography
You linked to the encyclopedia of World Occultism
See the difference my friend?
Go ahead, click on the Oxford encyclopedia tab. Yeti is still there... so he must be real. :p
Based on what he posted, it would stand to reason that it's the closest to an objective resource that I've ever seen. That anyone has ever seen, when you read through it. It certainly doesn't say with certainty who Jesus was, and the details of his life. That is still left up to interpretation, but it could serve as a decent resource for verifying that a man named Jesus might have existed and was crucified, and that he had a following. That's the part I found curious.
(March 9, 2014 at 5:15 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:(March 9, 2014 at 5:00 pm)discipulus Wrote: Dr. Edwin Masao Yamauchi is a Japanese American historian, editor and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Miami University, where he taught from 1969 until 2005. Dr. Yamauchi when speaking of the Roman historian Tacitus' reference of Jesus sums up the reference by concluding that it is probably the single most important reference to Jesus Christ outside of the bible. Reporting on Emperor Nero's decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:
Nero fastened the guilt . . . on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of . . . Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. . . .{1}
What all can we learn from this ancient (and rather unsympathetic) reference to Jesus and the early Christians? Notice, first, that Tacitus reports Christians derived their name from a historical person called Christus (from the Latin), or Christ. He is said to have "suffered the extreme penalty," obviously alluding to the Roman method of execution known as crucifixion. This is said to have occurred during the reign of Tiberius and by the sentence of Pontius Pilatus. This confirms much of what the Gospels tell us about the death of Jesus.
1- Tacitus, Annals 15.44
Tacitus reports what he heard people saying at the time, nothing of which is very useful to your case. Jesus lived and died. Cool story bro.
*yawn*
You'll have to try harder than simply referring to your Lee Strobel books.
That's true too. I need a nap. lol
You are trying discipulus...and for that, I commend you. :=)