Forgetting Jesus Freak Bullshit, Let's Stick To History:

[Minimalist]

Fine,  I'm usually around.

[Minimalist]

The Silence Around the God Boy.

Some interesting observations from the book:

Seneca In his book On Superstition, Seneca the Younger took aim at every known religious sect of his time, pagan and Jewish. But he made no mention of Christians, an uncomfortable fact that Augustine tried to explain away quite unconvincingly in his book City of God.6Remarkably, Augustine’s quotation is all that survives from this particular book. It is very curious that it wasn't saved, since nearly everything else Seneca wrote was preserved. Christians should have loved a text that attacked Jews and pagans, especially by such an eminent pagan philosopher as Seneca. It is also the only Senecan text we would expect to mention Christianity, so the disappearance of this particular book out of well over a hundred surviving writings of Seneca seems suspiciously like the work of snubbed Christian monks.

Okay - one example can be overlooked....

Philo of Alexandria Eusebius mentions that Philo also wrote a book on Pilate's persecution of the Jews (Historia Ecclesiastica, book 2, ch.5) - one more book where Jesus certainly should have been mentioned, but obviously wasn’t, since neither Eusebius nor anyone else ever cites this book for historical documentation of Jesus and his famous execution under Pilate’s watch.

but two examples?

Hippolytus of Rome 3rd century Church father Hippolytus’ magnum opus was his ten-volume A Refutation of All Heresies, or thePhilosophumena. At the end of book 1, Hippolytus declares that he will proceed to blow the lid off all the secret teachings of the mystery faiths, but those next two books are mysteriously missing. So the one place that could have told us how much the Christians borrowed or adapted from pagan mystery religions was inexplicably lost from the collection.

Getting a little harder to ignore.

Cassius Dio Early 3rd century Roman historian Cassius Dio (or Dio Cassius) spent twenty-two years chronicling 983 years of Roman history in 80 volumes. The first 34 volumes and the final 20 volumes survive as fragments and in abridgements by other authors. But the 35ththrough the 60th books are complete – with just a single exception: Book 55 (from the years 12 B.C.E. to 9 C.E.) strangely has a considerable gap in it. What’s more, this puzzling blackout is apparently quite pervasive; even subsequent epitomes by other authors don’t know what Dio had to say here, though they can often fill gaps in the text elsewhere. What has been lost – or removed – from volume 55?

 

Oxford historian Peter Swan notes that Dio's surviving material implies that he discussed Herod the Great's death in this section of missing text. 7 If so, this is where we would expect to find mention of the remarkable events Matthew describes: all of Jerusalem being troubled by news of the new messiah (2:3), Herod’s court intrigue with the Magi, his emergency council of all the chief priests and scribes to find the birthplace of the new messiah, his slaughter of the innocents, or the miraculous Star of Bethlehem. Certainly if he had mentioned any one of these, no Christian would have failed to preserve it and comment on it, seeing how desperately they searched for and doggedly latched on to any scrap of historical confirmation for the Gospels. But on the other hand, if Dio didn’t, then this otherwise unlikely hole in the middle of Dio’s record suddenly does make sense – as a victim of surgical editing by displeased Christian scribes.

And lastly, the xtians favorite historical prop...

Tacitus is widely regarded as the greatest Roman historian of all time, but he is best known in apologetic circles for making one of the earliest pagan references to Christ and Christianity. Christians treasured his off-the-cuff mention of Christ (see the appendix). But it appears they didn’t want to save quite everything Tacitus wrote. His history of the emperor Tiberius has a curious gap of two years – from mid-29 C.E. to mid-31 C.E., including all of the year 30, often regarded as a likely year of the Crucifixion.

 

In the American Journal of Ancient History,8 Vanderbilt University classical historian Robert Drews argues that early Christians deliberately expunged the section, and that this one spot was targeted because Christians were embarrassed by the great historian failing to make any mention of Jesus’ death, or any of the spectacular events that occurred at the time of the Crucifixion. If Christians didn’t squelch this passage, its absence is otherwise very strange and hard to explain (unlike other gaps in Tacitus, as Drews notes).

The suggestion in all of these is that these convenient lacunae in the texts serve only one purpose.  To rid the texts of information which would be damaging to the xtian bullshit story then be cobbled together.

This of course would be typical of the power-hungry shits who created the church.

[GUBU]

This is actually the first time I have heard of Samosata, and I haven't found, that he is normally brought up, when discussing early testaments concerning Jesus.   But none the less, I think you are missing the point of bringing up a hostile witness.  It isn't that they agree with the persons case (as then they would not be a hostile witness).  They are brought into question, because even though they are hostile, they do confirm particular evidence in regards to what is being said.  In this instance and others, it confirms that Christianity was known at this point in time.  This goes against the mythers, and those claiming legend.

You're wrong on this, because all Lucian of Samosota does is confirm that the christian cult existed at a date after 125CE. Nobody disputes this. What he categorically does not do, and what christian apologists essentially lie in portraying him as doing, is show that Jesus existed, started a religion, and that that religion is based off the "one true" god.

Bringing up a "witness" claiming christianity existed in 125 CE is as useful for christians claiming it existed in c33CE as a defence team in a murder case where the defendant said he was dining in Restaurant X on 12:15 on the 15th September (the time of the murder) bringing up a witness who says "yeah he was there on that date, I saw him with my own two eyes, eating there on 12:15 on the 24th September". About as useful as shit on a stick frankly.

[robvalue]

Right, no one is questioning that people believed stuff. It's the truth of the beliefs that is in question.

[RoadRunner79]

This is actually the first time I have heard of Samosata, and I haven't found, that he is normally brought up, when discussing early testaments concerning Jesus.   But none the less, I think you are missing the point of bringing up a hostile witness.  It isn't that they agree with the persons case (as then they would not be a hostile witness).  They are brought into question, because even though they are hostile, they do confirm particular evidence in regards to what is being said.  In this instance and others, it confirms that Christianity was known at this point in time.  This goes against the mythers, and those claiming legend.

You're wrong on this, because all Lucian of Samosota does is confirm that the christian cult existed at a date after 125CE. Nobody disputes this. What he categorically does not do, and what christian apologists essentially lie in portraying him as doing, is show that Jesus existed, started a religion, and that that religion is based off the "one true" god.

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Bringing up a "witness" claiming christianity existed in 125 CE is as useful for christians claiming it existed in c33CE as a defence team in a murder case where the defendant said he was dining in Restaurant X on 12:15 on the 15th September (the time of the murder) bringing up a witness who says "yeah he was there on that date, I saw him with my own two eyes, eating there on 12:15 on the 24th September". About as useful as shit on a stick frankly.

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Yes, I believe that is what I had said.  I find it interesting that I'm wrong, but you seem to agree with me.  The usefulness is in dispelling those who would claim late dating and legend.  It can be reliably shown that the Church was fairly well established early in the 2nd Century and prior across a large geographic area.  Lucian of Samosota was only born in 125 A.D.  and I'm unsure what time he wrote this, so it makes him specifically less useful for this purpose (and is probably why it is the first I have heard of him).  Others can be used more successfully to place Christianity as established earlier in the 1st century.  This goes to show that these events are reported during the time they are claimed, and unlikely the result of legend.   (Legends must distance themselves from the facts necessarily).  We have a number of accounts from multiple sources of Jesus.  And these are also backed up by others in the early 2nd century who quoted them, and attributed their Church founding to the Apostles and Jesus's disciples. 

However, if you have evidence or reason to believe that this is all myth or conspiracy theory, please do share!

[Minimalist]

Lucian of Samosota was only born in 125 A.D.  and I'm unsure what time he wrote this

That's okay, R/R79... can't expect you to know every detail of ancient history and you are utterly correct about the usefulness of hostile witnesses.  In fact, hostile witnesses ( or even neutral witnesses) at least are not likely to be propagandists as in the case of the original gospel writer.  That's why even something like the Doctrina Jacobi would be useful for xtians if they had something like it.

So Lucian wrote the Death of Peregrinus.  Here's what we know about Peregrinus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrinus_Proteus

So Lucian is commenting on the death of an actual person which happened in 165 AD and thus we can date the writing to sometime after 165.  Simple enough.

There are interesting facts that we can extract even from Lucian's satire and I'll ask you to hold that thought because I'll be coming back to it.  First, Lucian as a greco-roman writer was perfectly willing to paint with a wide brush.  Peregrinus joined the Ebionites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites

There were blasted by the early church curmudgeon, Irenaeus, in his Against Heresies in the later 2d century.  But such distinctions are lost on Lucian.  A xtian is a xtian is a xtian, as far as he is concerned.  Next, like all the other earlier greco roman sources that xtians try to use, Lucian writing in at least 165 gives no indication of knowing about any "jesus."  My guess is that that part of the story had not fully crystallized by that time....or certainly had not spread very far from its point of origin.

Lastly, Lucian is writing a satire.  He is poking fun at xtians and I agree with your point about hostile witnesses.  He at least provides a basis that such ideas existed.  But we can never know the intent of most of the writers.  For example, we have no 'cover-page' for say, The Acts of Pilate.  Xtians insisted that this was a real report written by Pilate but suppose the author was simply wondering to himself...." if Pilate had written a report, what might he have said?"  You cannot know the intent of an author and the author is not responsible for the conclusions of later believers who chose to accept the nonsensical as factual.  We owe Lucian a debt for making it clear that he was a satirist but he was not the only one in antiquity.

[RoadRunner79]

For example, we have no 'cover-page' for say, The Acts of Pilate.  Xtians insisted that this was a real report written by Pilate but suppose the author was simply wondering to himself...." if Pilate had written a report, what might he have said?" 

I am not that familiar with "The Acts of Pilate"  after a quick search it revealed that this was an apocryphal work written around 4-5 century A.D.  renamed to the Gospel of Nicodemus.  My studies in this area have mostly been concerned with early church history, and at that time they where fairly careful about new additions from what they have been taught, gnostic writings, and late writings. There are earlier references to the "Acts of Pilate" but these are well before this apocryphal copy we have and cannot be the same thing. 

Do you have information on how the orthodox Church received this document?  Also even if people where later fooled into thinking they had an original document, my interests in this regard are more isolated to the early church, where they could actually verify what was said.

[Minimalist]

It is very important to remember that in antiquity few people could read and, much like today, even fewer could write at least write anything that someone else would want to read.  This was the province of the intelligentsia.  The ancients pioneered many of the literary forms we have today:  drama, poetry, philosophy, history, fiction, satire, comedy ( bawdy and otherwise) etc.  The point is that you can not dismiss the idea of an intellectual exercise because these writers were perfectly capable of doing just that.

So let me give you another example.  In the intro to The Jesus Puzzle, Earl Doherty writes:

Once upon a time, someone wrote a story about a man who was God.

We don't know who that someone was, or where he wrote his story.  We are not even sure when he wrote it, but we do know that several decades had passed since the supposed events he told of.  Later generations gave this storyteller the name of "Mark," but if that was his real name, it was only by coincidence.


Suppose that is all it was intended to be?  A story?  Again, it is not the fault of whoever wrote the original that others came along later and took it seriously and expanded upon the basic story.

Now, we can and probably do, disagree.  But I regard that as far more likely than some dead jew coming back to life and flying up to heaven.


Anyway, to answer your question, the Acta Pilati shows up in the late 4th century.  One of the surest ways to date the introduction of such material is by seeing which early christian writers know of it and which do not.  In the case of the Acta Pilati, Eusebius, died c 340 AD, never seems to have heard of it.

[RoadRunner79]

It is very important to remember that in antiquity few people could read and, much like today, even fewer could write at least write anything that someone else would want to read.  This was the province of the intelligentsia.  The ancients pioneered many of the literary forms we have today:  drama, poetry, philosophy, history, fiction, satire, comedy ( bawdy and otherwise) etc.  The point is that you can not dismiss the idea of an intellectual exercise because these writers were perfectly capable of doing just that.

So let me give you another example.  In the intro to The Jesus Puzzle, Earl Doherty writes:

Once upon a time, someone wrote a story about a man who was God.

We don't know who that someone was, or where he wrote his story.  We are not even sure when he wrote it, but we do know that several decades had passed since the supposed events he told of.  Later generations gave this storyteller the name of "Mark," but if that was his real name, it was only by coincidence.


Suppose that is all it was intended to be?  A story?  Again, it is not the fault of whoever wrote the original that others came along later and took it seriously and expanded upon the basic story.

Now, we can and probably do, disagree.  But I regard that as far more likely than some dead jew coming back to life and flying up to heaven.


Anyway, to answer your question, the Acta Pilati shows up in the late 4th century.  One of the surest ways to date the introduction of such material is by seeing which early christian writers know of it and which do not.  In the case of the Acta Pilati, Eusebius, died c 340 AD, never seems to have heard of it.

It seems that you are going with the story you simply like better...  A story written 2000 years later, and I'm guessing with little historical credit.  I think this ends up in an untenable conspiracy theory when you look at the multiple churches across a wide geographical area. 

I have tried this (in jest) in a discussion with another on evolution and cosmology.  It was much easier to just dismiss everything as a story, and even question the existence of those credited as the tellers of said story.  But didn't go very far, before I was called silly.

[Minimalist]

It seems that you are going with the story you simply like better...

Any natural explanation is infinitely more likely than any supernatural explanation.  That is reality whether you like it or not.

Are you as open to stories of Apollo striding down from Mt Olympus and shooting arrows at the Greeks around Troy?  Or are we simply being treated to xtian special pleading?