Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Minimalist]

Dead bodies don't normally resurrect.

Right, but see, these are allegedly adults who believe in magic.

[Pizza]

Dead bodies don't normally resurrect.

Right, but see, these are allegedly adults who believe in magic.

I know and it's finally starting to piss me off. There is magic, therefor all magic claim are likely true. There are acts of god, therefore all acts of god claims are true. Other spiritual beings exist but they likely didn't resurrect Jesus because Bible.      

[Minimalist]

See?  Before you get pissed off you start telling them that they are fucking infants for believing in childish bullshit.


Does wonders for the blood pressure.

[The Valkyrie]

Jesus didn't die.

He just respawned at his last save . . .

[Cyberman]

Before someone else does:

[The Valkyrie]

You know, we're actually on target here.

One annoying apologist has joined us recently, but he is somewhat countered by a decent theist in the form of Catholic_Lady.

[Redbeard The Pink]

[Minimalist]

I never said that the passage from the annals was forged or interpolated.

I said it.  And stand by it.  Randy threatens to hold his breath until he turns blue but all he can do is shout about all the "historians" who accept it at face value without an inkling of evidence that it is true.

1.  Not a single ancient writer makes reference to the passage.
2.  Not a single ancient writer - xtian or Greco-Roman - seems to know anything about Nero persecuting xtians because of the fire.
3.  A watered-down version of the passage appears in Sulpicius Severus' Chronica at the beginning of the 5th century but DOES NOT include the line which Carrier cites as the interpolation.
4.  The sole medieval manuscript shows under ultraviolet light that the word was "Chrestianos" ( followers of Chrestus) not "Christianos" (followers of Christ) and it was "corrected" by what was probably a helpful scribe who thought he was correcting the spelling.
5.  "Chrestianos" compliments the writings of Tacitus' contemporary Suetonius Tranquillus who commented upon jews instigated by "Chrestos" rioting in Rome during the reign of Claudius.


Randy will go into his monkey-like poo-flinging act over this but all we ever hear from him is the same old shit.

Meanwhile, it seems quite likely that the interpolation of that one line was done sometime between Severus' Chronica and the mid 9th century.

The reason for the interpolation was the same as Josephus' Testimonium Flavianum.  Xtians were embarrassed by the fact that their godboy made no impression on the historical record.

[pocaracas]

He notes in the passage itself that he thinks christians are basically full of shit, so it's possible that he didn't take their beliefs seriously but still outlined them vaguely because he was writing, you know, a history book. Kind of pointless to name a group if you don't say anything else to describe them. Like I said before, though, early christians could have convinced Tacitus' generation of Jesus' historicity even if he wasn't a real guy, and that could be the reason Tacitus didn't blink at mentioning his crucifixion amongst the events of history. Personally, though, I'm leaning toward the idea that he was describing what the christians believed for the sake of briefly describing the cult itself, not for the purpose of claiming that Jesus was really crucified by Pontius Pilate.

Question for you redbeard, what do you think of the possibility that the Teacher of Righteousness may have been one of the people upon which the Jesus character was based?

[Redbeard The Pink]

Question for you redbeard, what do you think of the possibility that the Teacher of Righteousness may have been one of the people upon which the Jesus character was based?

It's possible. I think it's much more likely that he was invented as a celestial fulfillment of the Prophesied David-descended Messiah that some group or another dreamed up because that messiah didn't come before the line of David stopped bearing fruit. In order for the prophesy to be possible at that point, they had to invent a god character, which later got turned into a human character.