Josephus and other contemporaries on Jesus

[Minimalist]

RR trots out his big guns.....Wiki.  Well, no surprise there.  A bunch of apologetic horseshit.  Its okay, RR.  I understand.  You are terrified of accidentally learning that you have been spoonfed bullshit all your life.  At least you didn't revert to Timmy the Phony Atheist.

[Amarok]

RR trots out his big guns.....Wiki.  Well, no surprise there.  A bunch of apologetic horseshit.  Its okay, RR.  I understand.  You are terrified of accidentally learning that you have been spoonfed bullshit all your life.  At least you didn't revert to Timmy the Phony Atheist.

Pretty much

[Fake Messiah]

...What type of evidence would you accept or expect?  Perhaps your expectations are unrealistic.

Remember that time when zombies attacked the Roman empire and everyone else forgot to document it? The Bible is on it! Matthew 27:52-53

[Amarok]

Gosh. So, despite being an atheist, I'm a "Jesus freak shithead"? How exactly does that work?

And I "wasn't very impressive in person"? I seem to recall that our last exchange ended with me tearing the crappy self, published nonsense article you tried to use a new one and then you ... fell silent. Anyone who wants to can read the exchange HERE.

But since I've found you talk a good game when you think you're talking behind someone's back, let's see if you can do any better this time. Here is my article on why the "Lack of Contemporary Mentions" Mythicist argument doesn't work:

Jesus Mythicism 3: “No Contemporary References to Jesus”

Let's see if you can actually articulate a coherent counter argument to what I say there, as opposed to making sneering noises. Good luck.

You mean this bollock?

The ancient world had far lower levels of literacy, far less bureaucracy, far fewer documents about anything and, therefore, many millions of ancient people were born, lived and died without a single scrap of papyrus or parchment noting anything about them.

How many of those many millions of people were known throughout the land and performed miracles on a day to day basis?

The naïve form of this argument, as found in most the examples from the Guardian article quoted above, usually simply notes the absence of any contemporary references to Jesus and leaps straight to the conclusion that, therefore he did not exist.

Name one historian that states Jesus did not exist based exclusively on the lack of contemporary writings.

You waste much keyboard ink deconstructing Michael Paulkovich writings as though he were a major player in the mythist fraternity. Why bother, most historians consider him to be a fucking idiot.

Yup that's the limp wristed straw men Timmy relies on

---

So let's summarize 

Our case based on facts and reason and credible sources 

Roads and Timmy's case based on straw men and lame apologist webshites and weak apologist flailing

[Minimalist]

What is most interesting about Paulkovich's work is that he generally lists only the works we now have in whole or in part.  Hold that thought.  Now a 9th century Bishop of Constantinople by the name of Photius read a history by a man named Justus of Tiberias and reported on it.  His report essentially says that Justus, despite living in Galilee in the first century and fighting in the Great Revolt, nonetheless never heard of jesus.  We no longer have Justus' history as the scribes who worked for Photius apparently saw no reason to preserve something that did not sustain their bullshit.  In that sense, perhaps we owe Eusebius a debt of gratitude for phonying up Josephus' work so that xtian scribes had an incentive to preserve Josephus' writings.  But it is still a forgery.

Now, we will never know how many books failed to survive the fires in the libraries burned by xtian thugs.  That 126 must represent a pitiful percentage of the written history of the Greco-Roman world.  But it was xtians who did the copying during the Dark Ages or the Byzantine period and if there had been anything more relevant to be saved for posterity they would have done it.

[Amarok]

What is most interesting about Paulkovich's work is that he generally lists only the works we now have in whole or in part.  Hold that thought.  Now a 9th century Bishop of Constantinople by the name of Photius read a history by a man named Justus of Tiberias and reported on it.  His report essentially says that Justus, despite living in Galilee in the first century and fighting in the Great Revolt, nonetheless never heard of jesus.  We no longer have Justus' history as the scribes who worked for Photius apparently saw no reason to preserve something that did not sustain their bullshit.  In that sense, perhaps we owe Eusebius a debt of gratitude for phonying up Josephus' work so that xtian scribes had an incentive to preserve Josephus' writings.  But it is still a forgery.

Now, we will never know how many books failed to survive the fires in the libraries burned by xtian thugs.  That 126 must represent a pitiful percentage of the written history of the Greco-Roman world.  But it was xtians who did the copying during the Dark Ages or the Byzantine period and if there had been anything more relevant to be saved for posterity they would have done it.

Good point

Ultimately theists and their apologist allies don't like the argument from silence because they know it's a serious issue so they try and pull false equivalencies or downplay it to lower the standards of evidence so they can shove their god man into legit history

[Jehanne]

From your site:



Exact same thing is true of the so-called "canonical" Gospels; they were not written by any of the disciples of Jesus, either.

I don’t think that there is any reason to doubt the attributes Gospel authors, other than a late dating. And it seems the best reason for late dating is the prediction of the Temple. However, I find the reasons for early dating to be more robust, and to point to the time and evidence, rather than an a priori bias. If you have a reason to believe this though that you feel is good, then feel free to share.

Here is Dan Wallace’s writings on the arguments for and against late dating.

https://chab123.wordpress.com/2014/10/30...r-gospels/

Your inconsistencies are showing; you might as well not wear pants today.

You and your cronies are willing to apply the methodologies of critical scholarship to ancient texts, such as the Gospel of Peter, but not to the Gospel of Matthew? Outside of your shrinking Christian fundamentalist circles, no one thinks this way.

[Amarok]

I don’t think that there is any reason to doubt the attributes Gospel authors, other than a late dating. And it seems the best reason for late dating is the prediction of the Temple. However, I find the reasons for early dating to be more robust, and to point to the time and evidence, rather than an a priori bias. If you have a reason to believe this though that you feel is good, then feel free to share.

Here is Dan Wallace’s writings on the arguments for and against late dating.

https://chab123.wordpress.com/2014/10/30...r-gospels/

Your inconsistencies are showing; you might as well not wear pants today.

You and your cronies are willing to apply the methodologies of critical scholarship to ancient texts, such as the Gospel of Peter, but not to the Gospel of Matthew?  Outside of your shrinking Christian fundamentalist circles, no one thinks this way.

They don't have a historic method aside "whatever lets me sell my religion to the ignorant "

[RoadRunner79]

I don’t think that there is any reason to doubt the attributes Gospel authors, other than a late dating. And it seems the best reason for late dating is the prediction of the Temple. However, I find the reasons for early dating to be more robust, and to point to the time and evidence, rather than an a priori bias. If you have a reason to believe this though that you feel is good, then feel free to share.

Here is Dan Wallace’s writings on the arguments for and against late dating.

https://chab123.wordpress.com/2014/10/30...r-gospels/

Your inconsistencies are showing; you might as well not wear pants today.

You and your cronies are willing to apply the methodologies of critical scholarship to ancient texts, such as the Gospel of Peter, but not to the Gospel of Matthew? Outside of your shrinking Christian fundamentalist circles, no one thinks this way.

To which methods or principles do you refer?

[Amarok]

To which methods or principles do you refer?

Jehanne made that pretty clear 

Nice dodge