For People Who Think There Was No Historical Jesus

[Confused Ape]

[EGross]

I think they stole that from the Midrash of Abraham

You are just bandying words,’ Nimrod exclaimed; ‘we will worship nought but the fire. Behold, I will cast you into it, and let your God whom you adore come and save you from it.’ Now Haran was standing there undecided. If Abram is victorious, [thought he], I will say that I am of Abram's belief, while if Nimrod is victorious I will say that I am on Nimrod's side. When Abram descended into the fiery furnace and was saved, he [Nimrod] asked him, ‘Of whose belief are you?’ ‘Of Abram's,’ he replied. Thereupon he seized and cast him into the fire; his inwards were scorched and he died in his father's presence. Hence it is written, AND HARAN DIED IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS FATHER TERAH "

Lots of other fire stories as well. One of these is that Abraham is sitting by the entrance to Gehinnom, and when uncircumcized Jewish infants begin to enter, he takes their foreskin away (a quick brit) and sends them off to a safer place. But when circumsized Jewish male who married gentile women who had children with her tries to pass by Abraham he grabs the guy, puts a foreskin on from the ones he collected, and tosses the guy into the fire! (A not-so-subtle anti-intermarriage story).

[Confused Ape]

[ThomM]

[Confused Ape]

[Minimalist]

I was wondering if the Romans kept records of criminals but it seems that they didn't where the lower classes were concerned

Whether they did or didn't - and probably in the case of Roman citizens they did - is irrelevant. The issue is why would scribes take the time to preserve those records across the centuries? If archaeology has shown us anything it is that, monumental inscriptions aside, the preservation of ancient trade records and tax receipts is a matter of chance. There are thousands of cuneiform texts on clay tablets which were baked in fires when the palaces they were located in burned. This is why we have them.
The climate in desert areas such as Egypt or Qumran has fortuitously allowed us to recover documents from thousands of years ago which would not have survived in Italy or Spain or France just because of humidity.

Now with preserved documents - documents which someone made a conscious decision to copy and re-copy across the ages it must be understood that this is a laborious process and the documents which were selected for preservation had to meet the agenda of those doing the copying. I am fully with the group which sees Josephus' Testimoniam Flavianum as a 4th century fraud perpetrated by Eusebius. But it must be understood that without it we would probably not have Josephus' works at all. The xtian monks who copied Josephus
did so thinking they were preserving the words of a man who validated the existence of their "god." In contrast a contemporary of Josephus, Justus of Tiberias ( in Galilee) also wrote a history of the jews. We have the comment of Photius, a 9th century Patriarch of Constantinople who tells us that he has read Justus' work and that he makes "no reference to the appearance of christ." As a result, Justus' work was not preserved. You can bet your ass that if someone had found a reference to the godboy in it we would copies of Justus' work coming out of our asses.

[Confused Ape]

[Minimalist]

Even when it's a matter of chance it's likely that fragments of records about lower class criminals would have turned up by now if the Romans had kept any.

What possible reason would someone have to go through the time and expense to copy old execution records? I'm sure there were plenty of fresh executions going on.

Vindolanda Tablets

Another fine example of the chance nature of what archaeology turns up. The survival of those tablets is attributed to the anaeobic conditions in the ground. People also wrote on broken pottery shards and there the shard itself does not biodegrade but the writing on them assuredly does.

What's that got to do with what I said in Post ~287?

Nothing, except I do agree that there was a sudden need for heroes/heroines and relics of all kinds in the 4th century.

The lack of records makes it impossible to know the real number of Christians who were thrown to the lions as opposed to the number that the Christian writers wanted people to believe had been martyred.

We will see what Moss has to say on that subject. Thanks for reminding me. I have to go order that book.

[Confused Ape]

[Minimalist]

You keep giving "miraculous" examples of original writings which were accidentally preserved - entire bodies have been pulled from the peat bogs of northern Europe and studied.

But what you are looking for is more akin to a scorecard at a modern ball game.

"Bout #6 - Crispus the murderer v. Sextus the rapist in a duel to the death. Action starts as soon as the loser of Bout #5 is carted off!"

I don't think you'll see that sort of thing. Most of the Roman mob was not literate enough to read it.

Would someone bother to copy out such a form 40-60 years later to preserve it for posterity?