Pisty
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Josephus' Antiquities (early 2nd century A.D.) refers to Jesus in two separate passages. The common translation of the first passage, Book 18, Ch. 3, part 3, is disputed and is most likely from an altered source. F. F. Bruce has provided a more likely translation
I've had this come up before. While almost everyone agrees that part of Josephus' work is real (unlike a lot, including the part you quoted, which has been ruined by Christian tampering and is almost COMPLETELY disregarded, as it is obvious that has been interpolated) most people don't believe that this means Jesus actually existed, or was the son of God. Josephus did not believe Jesus was the son of God, if he believed Jesus to be real at all. It could be argued that Josephus believed Jesus to be a real man, it would even be acceptable to have the opinion that Josephus KNEW Jesus was a real man, even though this was written years after Jesus' supposed death. But Josephus' works do not prove either of these possibilities and definitely cannot be used as evidence for Jesus as the son of God.
Origen quoted Josephus a lot and even he states that Josephus did not believe Jesus was Christ, which is why he says 'the one who is CALLED Christ' etc.
(Origen on Matthew 10:17 "And in such a way among the people did this James shine for his justice that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Judaic Antiquities in twenty books, wishing to demonstrate the cause why the people suffered such great things that even the temple was razed down, said that these things came to pass against them in accordance with the ire of God on account of the things which were dared by them against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ. And the wondrous thing is that, although he did not accept our Jesus to be Christ, he yet testified that the justice of James was not at all small"
Origen against Celcus 1:47 " For in the eighteenth volume of the Judaic Antiquities Josephus testifies to John as having been a baptist and promised cleansing to those who were baptized. But he himself, though not believing in Jesus as Christ, in seeking the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these things happening to the people, since they killed the prophecied Christ, even says, being unwillingly not far from the truth, that these things befell the Jews as vengeance for James the just, who was a brother of Jesus who is called Christ, since they killed him who was most just.")
Since you like Wiki X3 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
Also, I read the book 'Josephus and the New Testament' by Steve Mason a while back...and I'd recommend that, as it points out contradictions in Josephus' works and gives a better insight into his intentions to flatter the Romans and why he absolutely avoided talking about Christianity and even it's possible plausibility. But it is religiously founded...so...I'm not sure you'd glean the same info from it.
But yes...Josephus is the ONE source, other than the Bible, from that entire time period who even mentions Jesus...and even he, bothering to mention him, didn't believe he was the son of God. xD
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Tacitus (c. A.D. 55 - c. A.D. 117)
Annals, book XV:
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.
Another one I knew would appear...
This passage is highly suspect. Assuming this is a passage actually written by Tacitus (doubtful, considering Christians weren't called Christians at this time; considering Christians weren't in large enough numbers to be known and hated, at this time; considering the fact that nobody else, including people connected to Nero, ever mentioned these much-hated people; considering that Tacitus HIMSELF only mentions Christians this once, even when speaking of the history in the supposed time of Jesus' life and death; I digress) ASSUMING it is real...Tacitus was born after Jesus' supposed death...in France. He KNEW precisely nothing.
These two examples are always given....two examples of people who weren't there...who know nothing first or probably even second-hand.
In a hundred years, people will be quoting you as evidence for Jesus' existence. whee
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Suetonius (c. A.D. 69 - c. A.D. 140)
Lives of the Caesars - Claudius, sec. 25:
He banished from Rome all the Jews, who were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus.
Claudius ruled between 41-54 and Jesus died somewhere around (whoever you ask) 30...so even if this refers to Jesus (it refers to Chresto, not even Christo....I'll come to that later) it only refers to effects of Jesus' followers, who may or may not have been following a real person (or the son of God).
Now, Chresto. =]
Since you've quoted Josephus as evidence, I feel I should have the same right and the same assumption of truth. Except that I can't find the exact place that I'd like to quote...I've been looking for a good 40 minutes...but this thing is so long and mentions Agrippa so often (a** kissing) that it's hard to find...I'll put my point but, for now, will have to remain unquoted.
Josephus refers to Agrippa as 'Chrestos' since Chrestos simply means good/great/useful/righteous. It's quite possible that the Jews mentioned in this passage were up in arms over Agrippa being made King.
Chresto has been used as a name for many deities/leaders. It isn't a Christian name, it is a very common word used pre-Christian times. It has been used to describe other beings far more often than it has been used to describe Jesus. Although, yes, Jesus the Chrest (Jesus the Good) has been used. Infrequently. And possibly not even about your Jesus. Christus and Chrestus may share common roots, but it is only Christus that means annointed or Messiah.
http://www.truthbeknown.com/suetoniuschresto.html
http://www.truthbeknown.com/pliny.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius_on_Christians
etymology of Chrestus/Christus:
http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/chrestos christos.htm
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You can't say evidence is apparent from a lack of evidence. Arguments from silence are not strong arguments. Given all the other names, places dates, titles etc matching up with the Bible, I am able to take a leap of faith on the miraculous.
I'm not saying evidence is apparent at all. I'm not attempting to disprove the Bible as such...I'm just pointing out errors in your attempt to prove it's truth. I don't have to give evidence at all, because I'm not claiming anything.
Also...it's a little odd that you can say arguments from silence are not strong arguments, but that you can accept the miraculous with no evidence. D;
That's a little hard for me to swallow.
Even without that logic it's hard for me to take...because I could add a page about unicorns into the history of Hitler and just because I believed the provable parts of the book, it wouldn't make me accept unicorns. That's a little odd. D;
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What is important is the fact that they were all willing to die for their faith. If Jesus had not been resurrected, the disciples would have known it. People will not die for something they know to be a lie. The fact that all of the apostles were willing to die horrible deaths, refusing to renounce their faith in Christ, is tremendous evidence that they had truly witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
People die all the time for things even you will not believe to be true. Suicide bombers die for Allah all the time. Does this prove the existence of Allah?
It doesn't have to be truth or LIE...it could be truth/lie/mistake/misunderstanding/trickery/etc etc etc...there's more than the two options. :3
(Ignoring most of the death accounts, because I find them irrelevant for the above reason...but I have to say that you can't trust Eusebius. You should definitely look him up at some point. It's a discredit to you to rely on him. )
I don't need Egyptian influence on the Bible...I need Biblical influence in Egypt. X3
Also...it isn't a LACK of evidence that bugs me, it is evidence we have of historical record that does not include Hebrews. What it does have is accounts of occurances that the Bible mentions...except there is no Christian God, there is Aten. There are no Israelites, there are Aten worshippers.
I DID have a list of amazing information about this, but I don't have that any more...I have come across one site which has BASIC information about this and I guess that'll do for now. Excuse it's name, if you're easily offended.
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/comparison-of-exodus-to-egyptian.html
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Secondly, the Bible covers hundreds of topics, yet it does not contradict itself.
I knew it. D;
Yes it does.
It contradicts itself over and over and over. crying
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In addition to this, many of these people also wrote in many different places. The Bible was written on three different continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe. Moses wrote in the desert of Sinai, Paul wrote in a prison in Rome, Daniel wrote in exile in Babylon, and Ezra wrote in the ruined city of Jerusalem.
The Bible was written in a tiny, connected area. None of it was written anywhere you had to use a boat to get to. The native Americans were completely ignored by God. I feel bad for them. xd
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there is so much agreement in the Bible. This unity is organised around one theme: God's redemption of humanity and all of creation. Hundreds of controversial subjects are addressed and yet the writers present a harmonious theme.
There's actually very little harmony in the Bible. Of any kind. There's no peaceful harmony-the whole thing is God killing people and getting people to kill people. There's little agreeable harmony, either. The authors constantly provide conflicting information and ideas.
I can quite easily give examples, but with the amount of examples there are, I may as well just hand you a fully highlighted Bible!
If you'd like examples, then I'll give them...but narrow it down a little, give me a topic. :3
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Throughout history, Bibles have been burned and torn to pieces; Communist regimes have banned it from their country's and skeptics have tried to destroy its authority.
I wanted to just ignore this...it's completely irrelevant. The popularity or dislike of something doesn't make it fictional/non-fictional, they're completely separate concepts.
But I thought I should point that out.
(I can't comment on any videos you've posted as they aren't showing for me and I have enough to answer without quoting posts to get links and wait for them to load...I hope you don't mind. If there are extremely important ones you need me to watch, I'll watch, but maybe you coud transcribe? )
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the Law against incestuous relationships was not given before Leviticus 18. Five of the examples given in the Top 6 Incestuous Relationships happened prior to the knowledge of the relationships as something wrong. Previous to this it was just a relationship. Unless someone has an inkling that something is wrong they can't be held accountable.
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In the early days of humanity, though, this was not a risk due to the fact that the human genetic code was relatively free of defects.
How has human genetic code changed? I mean apart from through incest. Which would mean God should have known. And shouldn't God specify that it's because of this reason? Instead of just deciding it was wrong. Seems this is putting words in God's mouth.
(Adam and Eve didn't know that the snake God created in his infinite omniscience to be a perfect creature was leading them astray. But they were punished. But I understand that one's debatable)
I'm not answering anything that starts with "Assume that there is a God behind history"...because if I assume that, there's no need for any of this. I don't need to assume that. You WANT me to assume that and that's why you need to give evidence as to why I should. From outside of that assumption.
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In order for us to say something about the extraordinary, the miraculous we examine how well the text holds up to examination on other levels. How did this effect the people around Jesus, and does their actions affirm that such an event took place. With all examinations there's going to have to be a certain leap of faith, as there are things we can not examine for ourselves. The main reason why I was quoting historical, and archaeological evidence was to create a basis of accuracy and trustworthiness which is something you should expect if it was a divinely inspired book.
Any record is evidence. If I am shown any other records, other than the Bible, that mention anything Jesus did, that would be giving me evidence. We cannot possibly examine these claims because they aren't mentioned anywhere else. At all. By anyone. I don't take leaps of faith with any examination. If I can't examine it myself, or find anyone who could possibly examine it...then that's because IT doesn't exist.
I like that you've attempted to provide historical/archaeological evidence...but it hasn't really been evidence of anything. Which is a shame.
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Now if we are to examine the text for errors or contradictions that's a very hard thing to do,
since we would have to agree on what a contradiction is, and what is to be considered proof of such a quality that it makes the accusation of a contradiction unreasonable. I should note that most claimed contradictions have volumes of documentation in the form of apologetic on one side and higher criticism on the other. Both of the side hold to the view that their interpretation (reasoning) is true. All I can offer you are plausible explanations, and I want to be clear on that so that we are operating on the same level here. If you have enough probability then it should in my opinion be enough to take a leap of faith. I am just speaking for myself here, it could be that you have a different level of acceptance of what you are presented with than I have
Agreed. My level of acceptance is that if one sentence says something and another sentence says the exact opposite...it's a contradiction. xd
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I highly recommend this video. It could help you consider what you consider to be enough evidence/proof.
I will definitely watch that. I'm off for a break right now though!Is it not illogical, to expect Josephus to have spoken favorable of Jesus? Is it not illogical to want that as a proof of Jesus being the Messiah? A Jewish historian believing that he was the son of God. He would not have been a Jewish historian anymore, but a Christian, and as far as the world is concerned not a reliable witness, am I right? What is recorded is that Jesus lived. He was a real person. You seem to agree with that? You also mention Origin affirming that Josephus did not believe Jesus to be Christ, but that is besides the point. Josephus recorded him as if he was a historical figure. Bias does sneak in to even historical records - the historians own personal evaluations, and point of view. So what we have is affirmation that there was a man named Jesus, and that he was called Christ by some. One source is not good enough? I am quite sure there are historical accounts that are considered true other than this based just on one account. That we can not accept something as true because it is just mentioned once is not a rule I was aware of as being binding, or generally agreed on. The Bible itself is comprised of several books, sixty six, written by several men. It has been estimated as many as forty... Why not then treat it as sufficient evidence in itself? We have far more manuscripts of the Bible, than any other historical documents.
How about the synoptic gospels then? There's four of them. Written by eyewitnesses (we know they are eyewitnesses because of how they write. If you would like I could elaborate.) who were willing to die for what they had seen, and experienced, likely before 70.AD (destruction of the Second temple). Eyewitnesses would have been around to protest. You said later on in your post that it is comparable to Muslim suicide bombers dying for Allah. But it most certainly is not. These people claimed to have seen Jesus resurrected, to have seen his miracles. I would like to think no rational human would die for a lie, at least for something they knew to be a lie. What would be the point of that? There was no glory in it for them. Note also that the gospels portray the disciples in a very unfavorable light. Deducing from that we can say they were not looking to elevate themselves. You are ignoring the death accounts because you are not seeing the whole picture, or not willing to examine the whole picture.
The book of acts, which recounts for us when the first Christians were first called Christians likely happened before A.D 70 in Antioch (See Acts 4 - Temple's still around ). Tacitus was born ca 55 A.D and lived to approximately 117. It overlaps, meaning Christians would have been called Christians at the time of Tacitus. Where Tacitus was born is not known. To say that he knew nothing about these events is presumptuous. The rest of what Tacitus says affirms that it is not just a Christ he is talking about; "Put to death by the procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius."
"Therefore, to stop the rumor [that he had set Rome on fire], he [Emperor Nero] falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most fearful tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were [generally] hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition - repressed for a time, broke out yet again, not only through Judea, - where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly first those were arrested who confessed they were Christians; next on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of "hating the human race."
If you inserted unicorns into the history of Hitler it would be fairly easy to separate the two. You would have to revise a great number of books, movies, documentaries, go into museums and place unicorns around etc. Yahweh is integrated part of Israel's history. He's not just pasted in as an odd appendage in an historical account. The historical account is not coherent if removed.
On contradictions; that is your understanding of the matter, but to my understanding it is far more complex and difficult than that to establish something as a contradiction. A sentence can change meaning if the situation is different. It could be describing a situation in one moment, and be rebuke in the next. It is all a matter of context. Who you are speaking to, why you are speaking to them, and in what setting you are saying it. You can not snip a sentence out the text it belongs to and then take another sentence without concern to the surrounding text to pit the two against one another.
Why do you need Biblical influence in Egypt, when Egyptian influence on the Bible shows that it must have come from someone who was there at the time? Showing how accurate the Bible is dealing with other historical events why not give it the benefit of the doubt? What of the article I quoted earlier showing there may be a considerable errors in our dating of the Egyptian period? It may be that they are just looking at the wrong dynasties, ignoring the evidence present in another. Hard evidence could only be a revision away. Let us wait and see. I am pretty confident hard evidence will surface.
It may have been a small area by our standards today that the Bible was written on, but back then the distance was pretty big. They had no airplanes, and would have had to travel either by land, or sea. From Egypt to Rome across the sea its about 1,400 miles with boat. If the sailboat could keep 10mph it would take 100 hours to sail 1000 miles - Ca 4 days. From Jerusalem to Rome by land 2,998.21 miles, that is taking the short way from Palermo to Tunis, with a boat. Not to mention they would have to know one another, and set up a date to come together to discuss. Very few of the different Biblical authors even lived during the same time periods.
It was not the kind of harmony I was talking about, but how the text moves - the flow. Having a consistent theme, and message. If you say it contradicts itself then the burden is on you to show those contradictions, not just say that there's so many that you could just as well give me a highlighted Bible. That's not really proving your point, but appears more as an attempt to give credence to your view without having to back it up with even circumstantial evidence. What conflicting information does the authors provide? Take into consideration that authors wrote from different perspectives, had a different focus, and intent behind the texts they wrote. I think your level of acceptance of what is to be considered a contradiction is too narrow to be able to accurately asses the text.
I wasn't saying that the Bibles lack of popularity prove whether it is fictional, or non-fictional. I was saying that the inability to destroy it could be an indicator that it is what it claims to be. If you have enough circumstantial evidence, then you have a strong case. People have been sentenced to death on circumstantial evidence alone. Diocletian in the first centuries of Christianity, burned so many Bibles that he thought he had succeed in removing it from the face of the earth. During the middle ages, the Roman Catholic Church burned thousands of copies of the Bible.The Fourth Rule of the Council of Trent stated that the indiscriminate circulation of the Scriptures in the common vernacular would generate “more harm than good.” Therefore, those reading or possessing the Bible “without . . . permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed [copies of the Scriptures] over to the ordinary” (Schroeder 1950, 274). “Of the estimated 18,000 copies printed between 1525-1528, only two fragments are known to remain” (Thiessen 1949, 84). Antiochus Epiphanes after the death of Alexander the Great, launched a bloody persecution against the Hebrew people. One aspect of his vendetta was an attempt to destroy copies of the Jewish Scriptures.
An ancient document records this episode:
And [the officials of Antiochus] rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, and set them on fire. And wheresoever was found with any a book of the covenant, and if any consented to the law, the king’s sentence delivered him to death (The Apocrypha, 1 Maccabees 1:56-57).
Josephus comments upon this event:
And if there were any sacred book of the law found, it was destroyed, and those [Jews] with whom they were found miserably perished also (Antiquities of the Jews 12.5.4).
Then you have intellectual attacks by men such as Celsus (ca. A.D. 178.), who wrote a treatise named "True Discorse" and Porphyry (ca. A.D. 232-303) who wrote several books against Christianity. Julian the Roman Emperor (331/332 – 26 June 363), based his work on these two. When he was younger his family was murdered by evil clergymen. When he became ruler of Rome he openly announced his hostility towards Christianity. Since three centuries of bloodshed had only worked in favor of Christianity, Julian decided to destroy the influence of Scripture by intellectual means, basing much of his work on the arguments of Porphyry and Celsus, only in a slightly improved form.
Then you have modern rationalism, with figures such as Johann Selmer, Friedrich Strauss, Voltaire. Voltaire predicted that within a hundred years of his death (1778.) Christianity would be swept from existence and pass into history (Collett n.d., 63). Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll, and many more. With all these people, putting in so much combined effort we still have the Bible around. As far as circumstantial evidence goes I would say it is a good one.
Just for entertainments sake; John Clifford:
Last eve I passed beside a blacksmith’s door
And heard the anvil ring the vesper chime;
When looking in, I saw upon the floor,
Old hammers worn with beating years of time.
“How may anvils have you had,” said I,
“To wear and batter all these hammers so?”
“Just one,” said he; then said with twinkling eye,
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”
And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s word
For ages skeptics’ blows have beat upon;
Yet, though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unharmed—the hammers gone!
Commenting on Adam and Even it is besides the point that they did not know the snake was evil. They should have trusted God. They had all the reason and were given ample evidence of God as good through observation, but decided to mistrust him, and listen to the snake. If they had attempted to evaluate the situation they would have been able to asses that the snake was evil, and had evil intentions. Why should God have to explain everything to us? Why should He have to explain His actions to us? Would we be able to comprehend it if He did? Considering that God sees a case from all sides, and work around evil to accomplish good I think it would be really tough to follow His train of thought. It could potentially be volumes of books trying to explain just His reasoning behind one singular event.
God said; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for
when you eat from it you will certainly die." (Genesis 2:17)
The serpent; The serpent said to the woman,
"You surely will not die! "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:5)
Genetic entropy. I will explain the point I am trying to make. With the fall of man, all of creation also fell. That includes the world around us, on all levels, also genetic. Increaded mutations scrambles the code. Following this train of though there was a point of gene perfection. IN this condition negative mutations were more unlikely to occur. I am not putting words into God's mouth, but attempting to rightly divide His Word, as I have been instructed to do (2 Timothy 2:15 ).
Excerpt from an article (link to the article provided at the end);
In 2005, geneticist John Sanford (Cornell) argued that the accumulation of mutations always decreases fitness in a process he called “genetic entropy.”1 The downhill trend is amplified by a number of factors, including selection interference and epistasis (interactions between mutations).2 Now, genetic entropy from epistasis has received support by two new papers in Science.
For mutations under epistasis to produce innovation, there must be a way for them to work together (synergistic epistasis). This is often assumed but has not been observed. Most experiments have shown beneficial mutations working against each other (antagonistic epistasis; see 12/14/2006), or causing even less fitness than if they acted alone (decompensatory epistasis; see 10/19/2004). In a new paper in Science,3 Khan et al, working with Richard Lenski [Michigan State], leader of the longest-running experiment on evolution of E. coli, found a law of diminishing returns with beneficial mutations due to negative epistasis. The abstract said:
Epistatic interactions between mutations play a prominent role in evolutionary theories. Many studies have found that epistasis is widespread, but they have rarely considered beneficial mutations. We analyzed the effects of epistasis on fitness for the first five mutations to fix in an experimental population of Escherichia coli. Epistasis depended on the effects of the combined mutations—the larger the expected benefit, the more negative the epistatic effect. Epistasis thus tended to produce diminishing returns with genotype fitness, although interactions involving one particular mutation had the opposite effect. These data support models in which negative epistasis contributes to declining rates of adaptation over time.
Within the paper, they said, “We observed an overall negative relation, indicating that epistatic effects became more negative as the expected fitness rose.…” Near the conclusion, they confirmed witnessing a type of genetic entropy: “A conspicuous feature of the mean-fitness trajectory for this population—and indeed for most experimental populations evolving in a constant environment—is that the rate of adaptation declined over time.”
The reason they gave was that “epistatic interactions contribute greatly to this deceleration by reducing the effect-size of the remaining beneficial mutations as a population approaches a fitness peak. In other words, epistasis acts as a drag that reduces the contribution of later beneficial mutations.” No increases in adaptation or fitness were observed, and no explanation was offered for how neo-Darwinism could overcome the downward trend in fitness.
Link to article: http://crev.info/2011/06/110605-genetic_entropy_confirmed/#sthash.BloAX7hh.dpuf
I will quote it again with emphasis: "
no explanation was offered for how neo-Darwinism could overcome
the downward trend in fitness."
Back to Josephus, are you attempting to infer that Josephus used Chrestos as a title for Jesus?
According to leading Josephus scholar Louis H. Feldman, the authenticity of this passage "has been almost universally acknowledged" by scholars. (Feldman, "Josephus," Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pages 990-91). In his book Josephus and Modern Scholarship, Professor Feldman reports that between 1937 to 1980, of 52 scholars reviewing the subject, 39 found portions of the TF to be authentic. Peter Kirby's own review of the literature, in an article discussing the TF in depth, shows that the trend in modern scholarship has moved even more dramatically towards partial authenticity: "In my own reading of thirteen books since 1980 that touch upon the passage, ten out of thirteen argue the Testimonium to be partly genuine, while the other three maintain it to be entirely spurious. Coincidentally, the same three books also argue that Jesus did not exist." (Kirby, Testamonium Flavianum, 2001). Though my own studies have revealed a similar trend (about 15 to 1 for partial authenticity, with the exception being a Jesus Mythologist), I do not believe that it is a coincidence that it is Jesus Mythologists who are carrying the water against the partial authenticity theory. Even the partial validity of this one passage is enough to sink their entire argument.
Source: http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm
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