For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[catfish]

Ummmm, I am the second best Christian.

Don't forget that ya phony ass Christian...
.

[Kritter]

Were there any other similar pieces of evidence OR were it not for the long Christian history of forgery, interpolation and pseudo-epigraphy, OR were it not for the evidence that the document was tampered with, I might actually consider it compelling.  

I took a look at this. The minor alteration is in the word which is translated as Christians but the word Christos wasn't changed.

Later the same year, it was discovered that under ultraviolet light, an 'e' is clearly visible in the space, meaning that the passage must originally have referred to chrestianos, a Latinized Greek word which could be interpreted as the good, after the Greek word χρηστός (chrestos), meaning "good, useful", rather than strictly a follower of "Christ".

So the passage originally read ..."Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called by the populace good/useful. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus."

Maybe somebody changed the e into an i because he noticed that the passage didn't make sense for the following reasons -

1: The Romans hated this class for their abominations so would hardly have referred to them as good/useful people unless they meant it in a sarcastic way.

2: Tacitus said that this class was named after someone they referred to as Christus which means the anointed one. If the class was really called chrestianos after the word chrestos meaning good/useful it couldn't have been named after someone referred to as Christus.

The reference was so oblique, it's plausible that he might have just been taking their claims at face value, considering Pilate killed a great many Jews and their leaders.

Which is why I'm talking about what Christians believed. The passage also tells us what Tacitus thought about the Christians' beliefs.

He is talking about Nero blaming the christians for the burning of Rome and them shouting something about a Chrestus as their saviour. That word as been forged by a later hand.

Even if the word chrestianos hadn't been altered the passage would still have referred to a class hated for their abominations and somebody with the title of Christos who'd been executed by Pontius Pilate.

Early xtian writers never mention Tacitus' at all. He is not a factor in what the earliest xtian writers said or thought or wrote.

Exactly - he was reporting what Christians believed at the time. The Christians didn't need to read his book in order to learn what they were supposed to believe.

http://www.webring.org/l/rd?ring=reledne...jesus.html

All I'm getting is a blank page.

The reason no commentator made reference to this passage before the 15th century is that the entire “Annals” in which it appears was unknown until the purported “discovery” made by Johannes de 1468.

The annals have been dated by scholars along with what must have been the earliest versions of the four canonical gospels. None of them prove that Jesus existed - they only show when people started believing he existed.

with a built in bias in favor of their godboy are perfectly willing to overlook the problems with the Tacitus reference. I am not.

What has that got to do with the subject of this topic? Are you saying that Christianity never got started?

How many times have I got to point out that this topic is not about whether Tacitus's report proves that Jesus existed. Everyone is supposed to take the attitude that Jesus did not exist and suggest how Christianity could have got started without a man to pin the myths and legends on.

Was changed:

The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos ("the good"), has been overwritten as christianos ("the Christians") by a later hand, a deceit which explains the excessive space between the letters and the exaggerated "dot" (dash) above the new "i". The entire "torched Christians" passage of Tacitus is not only fake, it has been repeatedly "worked over" by fraudsters to improve its value as evidence for the Jesus myth.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/josephus-etal.html
Clearly it was edited.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

Ummmm, I am the second best Christian.

Don't forget that ya phony ass Christian...
.

You're just like Wallace in this clip, always wanting a rematch. Nobody can get through to you that you lost.

[Minimalist]

The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos ("the good"), has been overwritten as christianos ("the Christians")

Remember that these were copies of copies of copies. Even in Tacitus' day he would have written one manuscript copy which would be taken to a
scriptorium where it would be read aloud so that scribes - more likely literate slaves - could copy them down thus industrializing the process as the Romans loved to do. Depending on the pronunciation of the reader and the hearing of the scribe errors could have been introduced into the process right in the beginning. Bart Ehrman goes into this sort of thing in great depth in Misquoting Jesus. So there may very well have been only one inerrant version of Tacitus' book...or any book. The one the author hand wrote. Anything after that gets iffy.

Since parchment scrolls did not last forever - particularly in humid climates - it was necessary for owners to have copies made if they wished to preserve them. Again, Ehrman discusses how even these individual copyings could and did go awry.

But let's lose the idea that we are dealing with what "Tacitus" wrote. These scrolls were well removed from his original.

[catfish]

I was expecting a funny picture too...

[Cyberman]

Just for you:

[catfish]

See? I'm sure I can do that, it looks easy... lol
.

[Confused Ape]

I'm going to quote something from the end of your post first because I think it's important where this discussion is concerned.

I highly recommend Bart Ehrman's "Lost Christianities" for some background on this point. PM me an email address if you'd like an electronic version. [/b]

Why are you suggesting a book by Bart Ehrman when he believes that Jesus really existed? His books about Christian forgeries etc. are useful to show how orthodox Christianity obscured what he regards as a real man but we're not talking about a real man in this topic.

Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth

In Did Jesus Exist? historian and Bible expert Bart Ehrman confronts these questions, vigorously defends the historicity of Jesus, and provides a compelling portrait of the man from Nazareth. The Jesus you discover here may not be the Jesus you had hoped to meet—but he did exist, whether we like it or not.

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

In Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium , Bart Ehrman offers an exciting and accessible study of the historical Jesus. He canvasses a wide range of ancient texts and modern interpretations as he orients his reader both in the distant world of late Second Temple Judaism and the current swirl of scholarly opinion. With verve, warm humor and exemplary clarity, Ehrman's Jesus provides the nonspecialist reader with an excellent introduction to this often elusive figure, the Jesus of history." --Paula Fredriksen, Boston University

You are missing the point of the passage. Modern xtian apologists are using it to "prove" that jesus existed but as noted in the discussion the church was pushing the idea that NERO began the persecution of xtians.
As noted in Moss' book, there was no official persecution of xtians until the mid-3d century and even then it was sporadic.

So Pliny and Trajan never wrote those letters talking about Christians?

Pliny the Younger (61/62-113 CE): Selected Letters, c 100 CE

See letters numbered XCVII2 and XCVIII. It wasn't an all out persecution where every Christian had to die, though.

It is not possible to lay down any general rule for all such cases. Do not go out of your way to look for them. If indeed they should be brought before you, and the crime is proved, they must be punished;1 with the restriction, however, that where the party denies he is a Christian, and shall make it evident that he is not, by invoking our gods, let him (notwithstanding any former suspicion) be pardoned upon his repentance. Anonymous informations ought not to be received in any sort of prosecution. It is introducing a very dangerous precedent, and is quite foreign to the spirit of our age.

As to your questions you have to lose the idea that this was some sort of unified religion that began at a specific point in time.

I don't have to lose any idea. I just asked you to come up with suggestions for how the original idea behind Christianity got started when there wasn't an historical Jesus. I'm not talking about a unified religion either because the Nag Hammadi texts show that it wasn't unified in the early days.

Nag Hammadi Library Alphabetical Index

From the Introduction

About the dating of the manuscripts themselves there is little debate. Examination of the datable papyrus used to thicken the leather bindings, and of the Coptic script, place them c. A.D. 350-400. But scholars sharply disagree about the dating of the original texts. Some of them can hardly be later than c . A.D. 120-150, since Irenaeus, the orthodox Bishop of Lyons, writing C. 180, declares that heretics "boast that they possess more gospels than there really are,'' and complains that in his time such writings already have won wide circulation--from Gaul through Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor.

1: When did Christianity start? Xtianity as we know it now seems to flow from the mid 2d century AD although it has continued to undergo doctrinal changes ever since. .

I'm not talking about Christianity as we know it. I think it's common knowledge that there were dying/resurrected gods in mythology long before the time when Jesus was supposed to have existed. The question is how and why did the fictional character of Jesus get invented so all these myths could be pinned on him?

2: Where did it start? Unknown but anywhere from Egypt to Asia Minor seems plausible.

Why did people in Egypt or somewhere in Asia Minor decide to worship a fictional character who was supposed to be the real Jewish Messiah and set most of the action in Galilee and Jerusalem?

3: How does any religion start?

List Of New Religious Movements

This is incomplete because new religious movements are starting up all the time. Every movement in the list has a founder and a date when it was founded. It indicates that it's possible somebody could have come up with the idea that Jesus was the real Jewish Messiah. After all, somebody had to give this fictional character a name.

They sure as shit did not get that idea from the "Jews" [b]for whom the messiah was supposed to be a successful military leader - not some schmuck who got his ass nailed to a board after attaining none of the goals which the messiah was supposed to do. [

This is why Judaism doesn't recognise Jesus as the Messiah. The basic idea of a Messiah in Judea had to be inspired by Jewish beliefs, though.

There were so many gnostic groups that no one can really sort out how one came to dominate the others and then re-write history to make themselves the "one true faith."

I'm not talking about what came to be regarded as the one true faith. If you take a quick look through some of the Nag Hammadi texts you'll see that many of them are about Jesus or the characters known as the Apostles. Why were the early Christians writing about all these fictional characters?

[DeistPaladin]

Why are you suggesting a book by Bart Ehrman when he believes that Jesus really existed?

Because Min is recommending Ehrman for the information he provides, not for what he believes.

Ehrman believes Jesus must have existed and he is free to continue believing that but I've never heard him provide a single good reason as to why.

[Confused Ape]

Because Min is recommending Ehrman for the information he provides, not for what he believes.

As I said in my other post - his books will show how orthodox Christianity came to obscure what he regards as an historical Jesus who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. This isn't much help when it comes to the question of whether Tacitus mentioning Christians and their beliefs in the Annals was a forgery.

Inventing Jesus: An Interview with Bart Ehrman

They knew Jesus had been crucified and they believed he was the Messiah, so they concluded that the Messiah had to be crucified.

He was a first-century Palestinian Jew

I also found this -More On Bart Ehrman's new book about Jesus

Now, however, he’s pretty insistent that a “Jesus” was crucified by Pontius Pilate.

What does Ehrman argue?

Ehrman points out that only about 3 percent of Jews in Jesus’ time were literate, and Romans never kept detailed records. (Decades after Jesus’ crucifixion, three Roman writers mention Jesus in passing, as does the Jewish historian Josephus.) Though the Gospel accounts are biased, they cannot be discounted as non-historical.

Ehrman believes Jesus must have existed and he is free to continue believing that but I've never heard him provide a single good reason as to why.

I've never read any of his books and I don't want to sign up to a website just to read his blogs. This means I don't know the details concerning his arguments about Jesus's existence.