Historian explains why Jesus ''mythers'' aren't taken seriously by most Historians

[TheMessiah]

Here you go again --- you do realize that none of what you're saying sounds rational? It sounds incredibly anti-rational and desperate. Historians are ''accepting'' a fairy tale? These people are experts in their field - and it's pretty desperate for you to attempt to dismiss what they do because you personally don't agree with the same claims.

Do you think it's credible to say climate-change is a Liberal conspiracy?

Also, here is the /r/askhistorians page, aside from the Gospels etc (which are analysed in the historical world), there are several non-Biblical sources which historians analyse.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/co...cal_jesus/

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/religion

It doesn't matter what they accept, it matter what demonstrable, objective evidence they have and they just have nothing.  Historicity requires multiple independently verifiable sources.  The Bible is one.  There are no others.  There are only second, third and worse sources from people who were not eyewitnesses, they were just recording what they heard from others who also were not eyewitnesses.  By this logic, in another 2000 years, Harry Potter will be a historical person because there are a lot of people who have written about him.

It just doesn't stand up to any rigor, sorry.

''It doesn't matter what they accept, it matter what demonstrable, objective evidence they have and they just have nothing.  Historicity requires multiple independently verifiable sources. ''

Said no ancient historian ever.

Ancient sources are scarce - historicity from ancient sources only need be one or two sources, and that's at the very least to confirm someone existed. For Jesus, ancient historians have two; Josephus and Tacticus, which are not biblical. The two references, with the forgery edit cut out, confirm HJ as a human - which is about as much as one would expect for Jesus. These sources don't claim Jesus was a magic-man, that's what we're using for the basis of HJ.

Also, I have been over this multiple times, they were not ''repeating'' eye witness accounts. Tacticus, was an anti-Christian Roman senator who made sure that his sources were reliable:

Here is some detail on how Tacticus kept his sources reliable:

A more common way of dismissing this passage is to claim that all Tacitus is doing is repeating what Christians had told him about their founder and so it is not independent testimony for Jesus at all. This is slightly more feasible, but still fails on several fronts.

Firstly, Tacitus made a point of not using hearsay, of referring to sources or people whose testimony he trusted and of noting mere rumour, gossip or second-hand reports as such when he could. He was explicit in his rejection of history based on hearsay earlier in his work:

My object in mentioning and refuting this story is, by a conspicuous example, to put down hearsay, and to request that all those into whose hands my work shall come not to catch eagerly at wild and improbable rumours in preference to genuine history.
(Tacitus, Annals, IV.11)

Secondly, if Tacitus were to break his own rule and accept hearsay about the founder of Christianity, then it's highly unlikely that he would do so from Christians themselves (if this aristocrat even had any contact with any), who he regarded with utter contempt. He calls Christianity "a most mischievous superstition .... evil .... hideous and shameful .... (with a) hatred against mankind" - not exactly the words of a man who regarded its followers as reliable sources about their sect's founder.

Furthermore, what he says about Jesus does not show any sign of having its origin in what a Christian would say: it has no hint or mention of Jesus' teaching, his miracles and nothing about the claim he rose from the dead. On the other hand, it does contain elements that would have been of note to a Roman or other non-Christian: that this founder was executed, where this happened, when it occurred {"during the reign of Tiberius") and which Roman governor carried out the penalty.

We know from earlier in the same passage that Tacitus consulted several (unnamed) earlier sources when writing his account of the aftermath of the Great Fire (see Annals XV.38), so it may have been one of these that gave him his information about Jesus. But there was someone else in Rome at the time Tacitus wrote who mixed in the same circles, who was also a historian and who would have been the obvious person for Tacitus to ask about obscure Jewish preachers and their sects. None other than Josephus was living and writing in Rome at this time and, like Tacitus, associated with the Imperial court thanks to his patronage first by the emperor Vespasian and then by his son and successor Titus. There is a strong correspondence between the details about Jesus in Annals XV.44 and Antiquities XVIII.3.4, so it is at least quite plausible that Tacitus simply asked his fellow aristocratic scholar about the origins of this Jewish sect.