Originally Posted by ags_rule:
“Do you even know what taken out of context means?
You have taken a quotation that is not about denying the historical existence of Jesus to try and make an argument that Jesus never existed! This is the very definition of taking a quotation out of context!”
no TSTS makes a cold hard case for why its possible that jesus didnt exist. it strips away all the conjecture and bs. THAT quoted ehrman in saying there are a lot of contemporary accounts from the time, but non mention jesus. now you can try to twist it, fudge it, ignore it. but what ehrman wrote is a fact.
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“Most of the claims about Josephus from the article are based on conjecture rather than hard evidence.”
really? they cite his actual early writings, hows that conjecture?
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“It states:
Logic itself tells us that had Josephus written the Testimonium, he would have written more than 3 lines concerning the existence of the Jewish Messiah in a book dedicated to Jewish History! You can't mention the Jewish messiah in passing in a book dedicated to a history of Judaism. You might as well write a book called "The Solar System" without mentioning the sun, except in a footnote on page 474.
This is flawed for a number of reasons. The argument goes that the lack of detail about Christ indicates that it is a Christian interpolation - yet if Christians were trying to edit the history books in a favourable way, why would they only insert three lines? As TSTS itself admits, there is more in Testimonium Flavium about John the Baptist than there is about Jesus! If the early Church was trying to make Jesus sound like a massively important and influential figure, then this interpolation was a tremendous failure.”
not sure what your point is here sir.... the point is surely that jesus supposed to have been the messiah, spreading the message of salvation. he was supposed to be bigger then john the baptist, yet theres no mention of him. no alarm bells ringing here? what TSTS suggests that the mention of christ was inserted at a later date (4th cent) by christians.
the point here being that there shouldnt be any need for later christians to doctor the book, so trying to make a point about them not adding much, a tremendous failure, really isnt the point.
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“Moreover, TSTS fails in its understanding of Jewish history. There are constantly references to "Why has Josephus not written more about a Messiah?" or "Why is he not mentioned in the Jewish sects?"
The answer is rather obvious, even today - The Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. While the early Christian Church maintained some close ties with Judaism, it is clear that by the time Josephus was writing, it was a small religion onto itself and therefore it makes sense that Josephus would not write about Christianity in a book about Jewish history and Jewish sects.”
............ or there was nothing to write about, because there was nothing there TO write about. the elephant in the room is one you highlighted yourself.... the jews did not recognise jesus as the messiah... WHY?
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“But you're right on one thing - most scholars do agree that Testimonium Flavium is not a fully authentic passage. It is likely to have been based on an authentic passage that was edited through the ages to sound more "Christian".”
fair play
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“TSTS gingerly skirts over the passage (dedicating a whole five lines to it) that is widely accepted as the authentic one (quoted in my last post) which describes James as "the brother of Jesus, called the Christ". The fact that this passage simply refers to Jesus as "being CALLED the CHRIST" is highly significant - Josephus acknowledges that Jesus was known as this, without accepting it himself. The term 'the Christ' is also more neutral than the laudatory language of the Christians, which would have been more direct EG. 'Messiah' or 'Lord'. The assertion in TSTS that this is referring to another Jesus is baseless and doesn't have any scholarly support whatsoever.”
'widely accepted as authentic'?... by who? believers?
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“TSTS also conveniently ignores the fact that Josephus wrote about John the Baptist in a way that does not match with New Testament writings in terms of how his death is described. If this were a Christian interpolation, it would certainly have been made to do so.”
maybe thats evidence that the new testiment is wrong! not everything was a christian interpolation...
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“TL;DR - While I accept Testimonium Flavium is most likely not a fully authentic passage, it is good that it is not the only Josephus reference we have. The neutral wording of the other references, alongside other historical facts, mean that the James passage is accepted as authentic by 99.9% of scholars. TSTS shows a fundamental misunderstanding of why Josephus was writing and who he was writing for, alongside his own personal beliefs.”
i dont think TSTS has any misunderstanding about josephus at all.
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“I can very easily throw this back in your face. As Ehrman himself states, Christ mythicists are usually not approaching it from a neutral historical perspective, but rather one that is determined to disprove a religion. Their methods and sources are just as subject to bias as any other.”
my bias is towards the truth of what we know, not conjecture, assumption, faith, unproven theory, but to the real hard evidence. let that show us what it may.
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“I won't concede it's true that Jesus did not exist as a historical figure, because the overwhelming body of evidence suggests that he did. I will, of course, concede that the Jesus of the Bible - the miracle working son of God - cannot be proved through historical or scientific research, and belief in that Jesus is therefore largely a matter of personal faith. But that's not what this debate is about.”
no no no! there is NO 'overwhelming evidence he did', it all comes from people who believe. the fact is that there is NO evidence he existed from non believer/neutral sources.
but at least you have the grace to accept the miracle worker cannot be proven, and thats a matter of faith.... i accept that.
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“Wait wait, let me get this straight, they hadn't got the resources in the first century to prove somebody didn't exist?!
They had EVERYTHING we don't have today! They had birth certificates, death certificates, Roman proclamations; heck, they could talk to their next door neighbour - "Did you hear about that Jesus guy who was here last week?" "Nah I was at the Temple at the time, he wasn't there" - their religious leaders could issue proclamations, Caesar himself could have produced the documents and the evidence that proved there was no Jesus.”
erm... they had birth certificates? death certificates? roman proclaimations? they could talk to the person next door?.... yet NON OF THESE sources mention jesus!
erm, how could caesar produce documents to prove jesus didnt exist, if jesus didnt exist?.. "ill issue a proclaimation denying this person who doesnt exist, doesnt exist, just in case sometime in the future somebody asks'!! how odd.
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“And yet you want us to believe that now, over 2000 years later, we somehow have more resources and evidence to prove that Jesus didn't exist, despite the vast majority of ancient literature and works either having been destroyed or being buried under modern day Jerusalem and Rome? Despite the fact your evidence being a lack of evidence, which if this same lack of evidence was around in the first century would have ended the religion right there and then? Oh MAN this is good stuff!
”
erm, of course we have more resources... scientific method for examining writings, dating things by carbon and by stylistically doing so. we can gather in one place all info, oh and we DO have a lot of early 1st century writings, ehrman said so!
i find it incomprehensible that ALL writings and references from a non biased point were lost.
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“Again, as I explained to you, these comparisons do not match up.”
no, what you did was make a statement then raise the drawbridge so it couldnt be countered.
the notion that only early christians were the only religious people prepared to die for their religion thus making it true - is the most biased nonsense youve said!
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“If we say that Jesus was not a historical figure, then we have a historical first - they became the first religious martyrs to die for something they made up, and they knew they had made it up! Feel free to believe in that if you want - for me, that is one massive stretch. Mohammed Atta believed that he was right, the people in Waco believed that they were right.
If Jesus didn't exist, the the disciples knew that they were wrong! Why on earth would you die for that?!”
its called delusion... i have no doubt that IF they existed and IF they died for their beliefs, they did believe in their story. but it doesnt mean they sat around and made the religion up deliberatey... its perfectly feasible that they have misunderstood, embellished, exaggerated, in good faith something they witnessed, or did they?
of course we do know know with any certainty who died believing what.
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“Conceded on the latter point, of course, but the first is a bit of a stretch. I can't imagine there being too many people with a dad called Joseph and two kids called Jesus and James. Moreover it was very unusual for the brother's name to be inscribed onto a tomb - this suggests that the brother was of historical significance. This again links into Josephus' passage where James is described as "the brother of Jesus", suggesting that this was a common way to refer to him.”
until this reliquary can be understood fully, and decisively, it matters not.
youve raised some interesting points, non of which though can prove the existence of a jesus more then i can disprove it. all we can do is add up what we see as 'the facts' or the most likely explanation . i will never change your mind, i accept that, and its highly unlikely you can produce the evidence to make me change mine (from the 50/50) . cheers !