Reasonable evidence cerca 0 CE

[achilles12604]

I have been butting heads with a few people here about demanding more, or "better" evidence for Jesus and Christian claims, than for the rest of contemporary history. So I am starting this thread.

The first example I can think of which indicates that the evidence surrounding Jesus is BETTER than other contemporary history is a comparison of the evidence of Jesus with that of Alexander the Great. The biographies of Jesus are 300 years closer to the events, and so is the contemporary external evidence. In addition to this, if we lost all the biographies of Jesus, we would still have a great deal of evidence about Christianity from the beliefs of the Nazarenes, Paul, James, etc. However if we lost all the accounts of Alex' life, we would know very little about him other than he was a powerful man who conquered in many places.

Two questions:

What contemporary person has superior evidence to that of Jesus?

Why is this evidence superior?


For the Theists

What other examples do we have of people lacking evidence until much later?

What are the differences between the evidence for this person, and the evidence for Jesus?

[Beto]

For Alexander, I found we have portions of an astronomical diary, contemporary of Alexander, recording the death of a Babylonian king and some reference to his battles, that can be cross-checked with later documents. On a given date it simply states "The king has died". Therefore, we know with great degree of certainty, by means of a contemporary source, that at the very least, a Babylonian king died on that day. In my opinion, the emotional unattachment of what appears to be an "irrelevant" entry to the main purpose of the diary, vows to its legitimacy. It seems to me the historical events are reported in the diary mainly for their connection with celestial omens, and not for their own sake. How can the same be said about anything written in the gospels, where the truthfulness of the content dictates its own validity as "God's" inspired "Word"?

I am familiar with these tablets. I was hoping to discuss the primary sources first . . . unless of course you consider the tablet a "primary source". If so, by all means we can discuss it now.

I would think an alleged contemporary source (I'll check why it might not be) is always a primary source.

In relation to what would it be secondary?

[Furrowed Brow]

Taking the same approach to JC.

What we got: Gospels (60AD+), Paul’s epistles(60AD+), Josephus (90AD)+ others 100AD+.

1/ We have a delay.
2/ We have unclear authorship.
3/ The earliest nameable author is Paul - who never met JC.

1, 2, and 3 show that we are not dealing with equivalent evidence to that of Socrates. We’ve actually got no one in the frame who we can identify as possibly meeting JC. At least with Socrates the major sources were contemporary to the specific dates. In this case we’ve got no one.

What does this evidence tell us? By around 60AD the cosmic JC of the resurrection story was established. We then asked some question is the story true? If it is true then cosmic JC existed.

Why might it be false? To answer that question we ask: who wrote the texts, for who were they writing, what do they want us to believe and why do they want us to believe it and then we ask about the motivations for someone to be lying., embellishing etc.

What we have is a young movement seeking new members. The incentive to embellish their case is then high. We ask: what is to stop someone like Paul or any other motivated individual creating the resurrection myth to give the Christian movement a cosmic significance and unique selling point of brand JC? And the answer no one who was actually in Jerusalem 0 AD. False - has its own compelling logic. If the supernatural JC does not exist then we look at why supernatural JC was created, and the answer - to be a unique selling point. Questions of any real rabbi Jesus once a carpenter suddenly become inconsequential. The Greatest story ever told is the story of how the “greatest story ever told” got told.

So what we got? All the evidence for JC is yes/no evidence. All we can say is that there was a movement, it was certainly established by the mid fist century, and the resurrection myth can be seen to be established around this time. We’ve got nothing to push the establishment of the resurrection further back, unless we already accept the truth of the evidence, and a priori reject the false hypothesis.

Some of the members here may will it, wish it, infer from it, but you have not anything that puts you in Jerusalem at the right time and right location. Something we at least have for Socrates. Moreover there is an overwhelming motivation for elaboration and embellishment to invent a cosmic JC.

Now we address this cosmic element. What does it ask of the reader. Well its breaks the back of physics, chemistry and biology. This is where I’ve been at odds with achilles and Goose who see this as some sort of circular self defeating argument. But I think we need to challenge that. Why should we disallow scientific materialism into out methodology? Because its bias? Bias against what…the cosmic JC? Say again? It is no more bias to introduce physics in our thinking than the knife plunged into someone’s back is evidence the dead guy did not kill himself. The prime suspect could defend himself by saying please leave physics and the human anatomy out of the court room - that is biased against my version of events.

You can’t lave the science out of this. To be true that still leaves logical room for an interventionist God intervening in Jurasalem 0 AD, but the science screams out EMBELLISMENT. Of course the science could mislead us. There could be a God. The false interpretation could itself be completely wrong. That is not the point. The point is regarding the quality of the evidence and the questions we ask of it - sadly the Christian interpretation disregards some important questions to cite what evidence there is - as evidence of their version. In other words you have to be a Christain to believe the truth of the Christian evidence. The only guys asking ALL the questions are the critics and their questions leave us at around 60AD with the story of a cosmic JC.

Note: the science is not be used to disprove cosmic JC. It is only being marshalled to evaluate the quality of the evidence if the claims are false, and how heavily or lightly should we treat the evidence regarding questions of embellishment in the false case. We have established the evidence is Yes/No evidence. We are now trying to assess the strength of the False case on its own terms. And once we open the door the false possibility takes a near miracle to close it again. With such a strong False case., viz., physics, chemistry and biology, for the possibility of embellishment, the False case cannot be ignored, circumvented or appeals made against it's bias. Of course it is bias. This is the False case. The case for embellishment on its own terms is overwhelming. In light of the strength of the False case the evidence that there is cannot be used to say anything stronger than the story of the cosmic JC was certainly established around 60AD - and that is all that can be reasonably said.

Before anyone comes back at me saying I am demanding extra ordinary evidence for an extraordinary event. I’m not. I’m asking for very ordinary evidence to get the cosmic story nearer to right time right location. Before anyone retorts I just venting my anti supernaturalism - well true I utterly reject the supernatural. But you don’t have to be an atheist to follow this line. You just need to not be a Christian

But lets lessen the stakes. I am asking for right time right location evidence. The nearer the evidence takes us to ground zero the stronger the case becomes for an historical Jesus behind the myth. If there were yes/yes evidence for the existence of Jesus in Jerusalem 0 AD, I might even have to become a believer in the claim he was crucified. Which at the moment is completely moot. Moreover the appeals to Alexander are a red herring. We can do comparative history study till the cows come home, it will only demonstrate that one side is unable to accept a methodology that asks you to fully face all the questions. Appeals of unfair frankly betray the weakness of your stance.

[LittlePig]

achilles12604

I have been butting heads with a few people here about demanding more, or "better" evidence for Jesus and Christian claims, than for the rest of contemporary history. So I am starting this thread.

I think part of this confusion about the 'quality' of historical evidence is that we are comparing apples to oranges. Comparing the evidence for natural and supernatural events in an attempt to bolster or tarnish supernatural 'evidence' isn't going to get us anywhere. Unless people experience miracles first hand, there probably won't be enough historical evidence to persuade someone of a miracle who doesn't already believe in them or who isn't a little too ready to believe anything.

It seems to me that the question of supernatural, miracles, and the resurrection, although historical questions for sure, come down to something much more than a historical investigation where one applies accepted historical criteria. This has been touched on by many posts in numerous threads, but it is often waved away with claims of supernatural bias.

What is a supernatural event? If it interacts with the natural world in either a 1-way fashion (causative toward the natural) or in a 2-way fashion (reciprocal causation, something necessary [?] for an observer in the supernatural realm to perceive the natural), wouldn't it really just be an extension of the laws of the natural world, i.e., a part of the natural world as of yet undiscovered? If the relationship is 2-way, then there is potential that the 'supernatural' world could be subject to empirical investigation. The concept of the supernatural is definitionally problematic as something exterior to and unobservable by the natural world.

But the biggest problem with supernatural events is that there are NO criteria for determining when an event should be interpreted as supernatural rather than natural. The typical approach (the ONLY approach in the resurrection case) is to identify an event which defies explanation. But many events defy explanation either from a flawed/limited understanding of the natural world or from insufficient information about an event that would otherwise be explainable by understood causes. How do we know when an event is not one of the aforementioned categories of unexplained NATURAL events? Is it when we FEEL like there is no answer or possibley when we WOULD LIKE TO THINK there is no natural answer? No historical criteria can tell us when an event is natural or supernatural. And any ANCIENT HISTORY criteria are only going to be that much further from a supernatural conclusion in that they are even more deficient at unearthing the unexplained than are criteria for recent history. The Catholics may have criteria for determining when a demon possession is real and whether or not a miracle is canonical, but that is decided more by theology than history.

Since we cannot distinguish a supernatural event from a natural one and do not know that they even exist, then attributing a supernatual cause to an event is and always will be a philosophical decision, not a historical one. The resurrection story at best, with all the historical evidence accepted at face value, presents us with an event that seems to defy natural explanation. We can CHOOSE to agree with a supernatural explanation, but that is a philosophical judgment agreeing with the philosophy of the gospel writers and limited by the quality of the information they provide us.

But the resurrection story is more than a random ghost story and is much more philosophically entangled than the average spooky supernatural claim. This is because the resurrection is tied up in a much larger supernatural worldview. If important elements of that worldview are contradictory, then that weakens the particual supernatural explanation of a miracle from YHWH as an explanation of what the gospels contain. The resurrection is often used as a 'proof' of the other unsubstantiatable and paradoxical claims of Christianity, but that's not tenable if historical analysis cannot verify the supernatural. At best the resurrection can serve to be a nice puzzle piece fit for the larger Christian worldview. And just like with puzzles, the pieces that surround the gaping hole in the middle tell you something about that hole. Information goes both ways.

The resurrection is judged by Christians to be supernatural because it is deemed the best explanation for the information the gospels present. But the gospel pieces don't always fit together so well, and, IMO, they don't fit very well at all with the Jewish worldview which would have been the early Christian worldview. There are problems with prophecies, genealogies, and the Law that all play havoc with the Jesus story. And the Christian story has very big issues on the larger philosophical scene. If believing in supernatural miracles from YHWH is a philosophical decision, then one has to contend with the sharks floating in that larger philosophical pudding. The resurrection does not provide an out on that one.

So if the exterior puzzle pieces require us to reassemble the gospel information to make a nice fit, then we may have to do some cutting, sanding, and gluing of edges to find the truth. The gospel stories themselves may be insufficient to get us there regardless of how marvelous they are compared with other examples of ancient history. Believing in miracles is philosophy, not history.

[Goose]

FB, you are making some rather large assumptions.

The writings of Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon are yes/yes evidence for the existence of Plato, Aristophanes and Xenophon.

How do you know Plato, Aristophanes, and Xenophon actually wrote the works you think they wrote? What is the method you use? Or, are you ASSUMING they wrote them. Plato's Republic for instance is every bit as anonymous as the gospels. Xenophon writes in the third person. You are question-begging again. Now, if you can't establish the authorship of these works by the same method you expect of the Gospels then you are in no better a position than you place the Christian.

Taking the same approach to JC.

What we got: Gospels (60AD+), Paul’s epistles(60AD+), Josephus (90AD)+ others 100AD+.

Small correction here. No scholar puts Paul's letters in the 60's. They are usually dated to the 50's. Further, there are creedal passages in Paul that are considered very early that affirm Jesus' death, burial, and Resurrection.

1/ We have a delay.
2/ We have unclear authorship.
3/ The earliest nameable author is Paul - who never met JC.

1. There is a delay with Socrates as well as with most historical figures. How are you dating the works? 2. I'll bet they are as clear as the authorship for the works that attest to Socrates. Probably even clearer if we were to start digging. 3. Paul met the disciples that knew Jesus (Galatians 1-2).

1, 2, and 3 show that we are not dealing with equivalent evidence to that of Socrates. We’ve actually got no one in the frame who we can identify as possibly meeting JC. At least with Socrates the major sources were contemporary to the specific dates. In this case we’ve got no one.

Let's see the method you use to establish the authorship of the works attesting to Socrates before we jump to this conclusion.

Why might it be false? To answer that question we ask: who wrote the texts, for who were they writing, what do they want us to believe and why do they want us to believe it and then we ask about the motivations for someone to be lying., embellishing etc.

We should ask the same about the texts that attest to Socrates. Who wrote them? How do you know? What is the method?

[Beto]

The biographies of Jesus are 300 years closer to the events, and so is the contemporary external evidence.

Do we have contemporary external evidence, or an interpretation of the translation of the translation of the translation of an alleged contemporary external evidence? I mean, original manuscripts. Off the top, do you know of any?

[Furrowed Brow]

Goose, you're are drowning not waving. What conccusion did I reach regarding Socrates?

Is it reasonable to infer a real Socrates? It is moot.

So what we get is yes to brand Socrates and a possible yes to real Socrates - but also a possible no to real Socrates. The unresolved question require a bit more scholarship and a bill to Socrates for a cup of hemlock.

Are you prepared to come to the same conclusion and willing to accept the need for more evidence for JC?

[achilles12604]

Taking the same approach to JC.

What we got: Gospels (60AD+), Paul’s epistles(60AD+), Josephus (90AD)+ others 100AD+.

1/ We have a delay.
2/ We have unclear authorship.
3/ The earliest nameable author is Paul - who never met JC.

1, 2, and 3 show that we are not dealing with equivalent evidence to that of Socrates. We’ve actually got no one in the frame who we can identify as possibly meeting JC. At least with Socrates the major sources were contemporary to the specific dates. In this case we’ve got no one.

Ah be careful Furrowed. As I showed with my last post where I compared each source, we have identical problems with both the sources of Alex and Socrates.

Observe that most of the writings accociated with Alexander are 300 - 600 years out of date.

Shall we file this under "we have a slight delay?" Similarly the sources for Socrates are out of date between 20-40 years. These date ranges are similar to those of Jesus. So would you allow that if the sources for Jesus are out of date, so are the sources for Socrates and Alex?

Next unclear authorship. Just as with Paul's letters, many of the writings of Plato were not actually written by him. These include mention of Socrates. So if we are unaware of who wrote some of Plato's writings, how is this different than teh Gospels, of which we have at least a decent idea of who wrote them?

ALSO on this same note, the primary "reason" for the "mysterious authorship" of the Gospels is that they didn't sign them. Lack of internal clear authorship has been thrown in my face repeatedly. But look carefully at the works of Plato and Alex sources and Xeon et al. The vast majority of these works ALSO lack internal authorship. So I can ask you to please prove beyond reasonable doubt that these works were even authored by the people in question. Considering the vast span of time for Alexander (300-600 years) and the fact that even if his authors were labeled correctly, they obviously had no knowledge of the man at all, doesn't this put Jesus ahead of Alexander as far as source materials are concerned?

And with Plato, it is clear that many of the writings attributed to Plato are in fact forgeries with his name on them. Just as many of "pauls" letter fall into this catagory. Can you vouch and prove the authorship and value of these writings as well?


It seems to me that the sources for all 3 have very similar problems. Do you disagree?

[achilles12604]

Goose, you're are drowning not waving. What conccusion did I reach regarding Socrates?

Is it reasonable to infer a real Socrates? It is moot.

So what we get is yes to brand Socrates and a possible yes to real Socrates - but also a possible no to real Socrates. The unresolved question require a bit more scholarship and a bill to Socrates for a cup of hemlock.

Are you prepared to come to the same conclusion and willing to accept the need for more evidence for JC?

The entire purpose of this excercise is to prove that the evidence for Jesus is equivalent to the rest of contemporary history. You yourself wrote that you would approach the evidence the "same way".

I am showing you, and the rest of the non-theists here that the evidence is equivalent. Therefore the only reason you reject the evidence of Jesus and accept the evidence for Soc and Alex, is personal bias.

Once this is acknowledged or proven, I will be done with this thread.

[Beto]

Goose, you're are drowning not waving. What conccusion did I reach regarding Socrates?

Is it reasonable to infer a real Socrates? It is moot.

So what we get is yes to brand Socrates and a possible yes to real Socrates - but also a possible no to real Socrates. The unresolved question require a bit more scholarship and a bill to Socrates for a cup of hemlock.

Are you prepared to come to the same conclusion and willing to accept the need for more evidence for JC?

The entire purpose of this excercise is to prove that the evidence for Jesus is equivalent to the rest of contemporary history. You yourself wrote that you would approach the evidence the "same way".

I am showing you, and the rest of the non-theists here that the evidence is equivalent. Therefore the only reason you reject the evidence of Jesus and accept the evidence for Soc and Alex, is personal bias.

Once this is acknowledged or proven, I will be done with this thread.

What contemporary evidence (original manuscript, document, tablet, etc) do you have supporting the existence of Jesus? I think that if one doesn't have original documents, alledged contemporaneity is naturally subject to the emotional investment, in this case, of the institution that made the claim. And in this regard, JC is milles away from anyone else (except maybe Muhammad).

[Goat]

Taking the same approach to JC.

What we got: Gospels (60AD+), Paul’s epistles(60AD+), Josephus (90AD)+ others 100AD+.

1/ We have a delay.
2/ We have unclear authorship.
3/ The earliest nameable author is Paul - who never met JC.

1, 2, and 3 show that we are not dealing with equivalent evidence to that of Socrates. We’ve actually got no one in the frame who we can identify as possibly meeting JC. At least with Socrates the major sources were contemporary to the specific dates. In this case we’ve got no one.

Ah be careful Furrowed. As I showed with my last post where I compared each source, we have identical problems with both the sources of Alex and Socrates.

Observe that most of the writings accociated with Alexander are 300 - 600 years out of date.

Shall we file this under "we have a slight delay?" Similarly the sources for Socrates are out of date between 20-40 years. These date ranges are similar to those of Jesus. So would you allow that if the sources for Jesus are out of date, so are the sources for Socrates and Alex?

Next unclear authorship. Just as with Paul's letters, many of the writings of Plato were not actually written by him. These include mention of Socrates. So if we are unaware of who wrote some of Plato's writings, how is this different than teh Gospels, of which we have at least a decent idea of who wrote them?

ALSO on this same note, the primary "reason" for the "mysterious authorship" of the Gospels is that they didn't sign them. Lack of internal clear authorship has been thrown in my face repeatedly. But look carefully at the works of Plato and Alex sources and Xeon et al. The vast majority of these works ALSO lack internal authorship. So I can ask you to please prove beyond reasonable doubt that these works were even authored by the people in question. Considering the vast span of time for Alexander (300-600 years) and the fact that even if his authors were labeled correctly, they obviously had no knowledge of the man at all, doesn't this put Jesus ahead of Alexander as far as source materials are concerned?

And with Plato, it is clear that many of the writings attributed to Plato are in fact forgeries with his name on them. Just as many of "pauls" letter fall into this catagory. Can you vouch and prove the authorship and value of these writings as well?


It seems to me that the sources for all 3 have very similar problems. Do you disagree?

Do we? How much of a delay is the astronomical diaries for Alexander? As for Plato, he claims to have been present at the trial. None of the gospels seem to have been written by eye witnesses, although they claimed there were.. at least second or third hand info at best. Most of the Gospels were not written in the first person even. Luke did manage to use 'I', but he frankly admitted he is taking his information from others.