JESUS CHRIST: Myth or Historical Person?

[Alter2Ego]

[font=Verdana]A favorite argument by non-believers is that Jesus Christ's existence is confined to the pages of the Judeo-Christian Bible. When presented with documentary evidence of his historical existence, Bible critics then use another ploy: they attack the credibility of those who confirmed the existence of Jesus Christ and/or they attack the credibility of what was written about Jesus Christ.

Below are three non-Christians from the 1st Century AD who mentioned Jesus Christ in their secular writings. The questions for debate are at the end of this post.

PERSON #1:
Name and Occupation: Cornelius Tacitus, Roman Historian

DOB to Date of Death: A.D. 55 to A.D. 120

Attitude Towards Christianity: Hostile

What He Said: He confirmed that CHRISTUS (a common misspelling of Christ at the time) was executed by Pilate.

Highlights on Tacitus: A Roman historian who lived through the reign of over a half-dozen Roman emperors, Tacitus has been called "the greatest historian of ancient Rome."


PERSON #2:
Name and Occupation: Flavius Josephus, Jewish Historian

DOB to Date of Death: 37 AD -- Died after 100 AD

Attitude Towards Christianity: Apathetic (could care less about them)

What He Said: He confirmed that Christ who performed miracles was executed by Pilate.

Highlights on Josephus: A Jewish historian of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD (the century in which Jesus Christ lived and died). He has been credited by many as recording some of the earliest history of Jesus Christ outside of the gospels. Flavius Josephus belonged to the group of Jewish religious leaders--the Pharisees--responsible for Jesus' death.

Flavius Josephus joined the zealots who rebelled against Roman rule between 66 and 74 AD, becoming a leader of their forces in Galilee, and living through the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. He was captured by the Romans, and would have been executed, but he went over to their side and ended up becoming the Roman emperor's Adviser on Jewish Affairs.


PERSON #3:
Name and Occupation: Pliny The Younger (born Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus), Roman Governor

DOB to Date of Death: 61 AD to 112 AD

Attitude Towards Christianity: Hostile. He executed Christians

What He Said: Referred to Christ as a "god of the Christians."

Highlights on Pliny: Pliny condemned Men, Women, and children to death if they refused to curse Christ and if they refused to deny they were Christians.


DEBATE QUESTIONS:
1. All three of the individuals described above were people in powerful positions. What did they have to gain from mentioning the existence of Jesus Christ in their writings?

2. Flavius Josephus, a Jew, was born four years after Jesus was executed. He became a Jewish Pharisee as an adult, in addition to becoming a respected historian and advisor to the Roman emperor. Do you see anything significant to his being a Pharisee, a historian, and Roman emperor advisor--and the fact that he mentioned Jesus Christ in his writings?

3. Cornelius Tactitus was known as the greatest historian of his time, during which he lived through the reign of over a half-dozen Roman emperors. Do you see anything significant to his resume and the fact that he mentioned Jesus Christ in his writings?[/font]

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Since Jehovah was able to create the first man Adam from dust, and since Jehovah is responible for the creation of Earth, the solar system, the planets, and everything in existence, I don't find it difficult to believe that the same God who did all that was able to resurrect Jesus back to life and return him to the heavens--from which he originally came.

Since obviously you are a non-believer, I don't expect you to accept this. Non-belief is a choice. If that's what makes you tick, be my guest.

If Jehovah can do all of the things that you suggest then of course he can make corpse's come back to life and even fly. He can also make reindeer fly and create a land over the rainbow full of munchkins and witches if He chooses to. But that wasn't the question. The question was is understandable that a reasonable person might have genuine cause to be skeptical of such claims? Or to put it more succinctly, is there any actual reason to suppose that ANY of these things I mentioned actually occurred and represent anything other than stories and the imagination of humans at work?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

HEY Alter2Ego !

Where have you gone! YOU started this thread, and YOU lay down the challenge. Now I have posed to you what seems to me to be an entirely fair and pertinent question. So don't run off on us. Your belief system includes a story of hoards of dead people coming up out of their graves and wandering about the city of Jerusalem, along with the implicit belief that the corpse of Jesus returned to life and then flew away. And yet these claims have no more or less apparent believability then stories of flying reindeer or of a land over the rainbow full of munchkins and witches. Indeed, the residents of Oz put their faith into an individual who eventually proved to be a total fraud! Is it really unreasonable to suspect that ALL OF THESE STORIES are nothing more then than examples of the human imagination at work? And if you cannot or choose not to defend what on the face of it appears to be perfectly silly claims, claims which are at the same time so intrinsic to your belief system, is there any reason why we SHOULDN'T simply dismiss you and your empty and foolish claims as nothing more than imaginative ancient superstitious nonsense? And doesn't that serve to explain this whole non-belief thing that is occurring today?

[pladecalvo]

He brought the same argument here...

http://www.city-data.com/forum/religion ... y-non.html

...he got a hammering there too. Banned in fact (quite a few times and kept coming back with another account) ...also goes by the name of 'wilsoncole' He is arrogance personified!

[Tired of the Nonsense]

..he got a hammering there too. Banned in fact (quite a few times and kept coming back with another account) ...also goes by the name of 'wilsoncole' He is arrogance personified!

Thanks for the info. I find odd the succession of Christians that turn up apparently spoiling for an argument with the evil non believers, certain of their cause and the indefatigable nature of their beliefs, only to refuse to defend what they claim to believe when presented with an argument or arguments that makes them uncomfortable, or horror of horrors, effectively contradicts what they are convinced cannot be contradicted. I suppose abruptly walking away from an argument one is clearly losing is understandable. But what point is to be made by starting another argument in a new thread if one has already found that they are unable or unwilling to defend their beliefs in the original thread? I don't mind arrogance. It's the blatant hypocrisy that I find amusing.

[Jayhawker Soule]

The mythicist position is little more than adolescent obstinancy. Paul, Luke, and Josephus are more than adequate to justify a presumption of historicity.

[Goat]

The mythicist position is little more than adolescent obstiancy. Paul, Luke, and Josephus are more than adequate to justify a presumption of historicity.

Two people who never met Jesus, and are writing from a religious motivation, and a forgery??


Really?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

The mythicist position is little more than adolescent obstiancy. Paul, Luke, and Josephus are more than adequate to justify a presumption of historicity.

None of the three ever met Jesus, actually.

[Jayhawker Soule]

The mythicist position is little more than adolescent obstiancy. Paul, Luke, and Josephus are more than adequate to justify a presumption of historicity.

Two people who never met Jesus, and are writing from a religious motivation, and a forgery??


Really?

Yes, really. And you might wish to hold off on the 'forgery' claim unless, of couse, you don't mind coming across as a bit of a fool.

[Jayhawker Soule]

The mythicist position is little more than adolescent obstiancy. Paul, Luke, and Josephus are more than adequate to justify a presumption of historicity.

None of the three ever met Jesus, actually.

Correct. Thanks for sharing.

[Haven]

I don't get the mythicist viewpoint, either. The historical evidence (Tacitus, Suetonius, the Pauline letters, Josephus [possibly], and the gospel accounts themselves) seems to be enough to conclude a man named Jesus existed, and the vast majority of Biblical scholars, including non-theists like Bart Ehrman, agree with this.

In my opinion, mythicism is a view held up by militant "new atheists" who want to debunk the central person of Christianity. Although I am an atheist, I go where the evidence leads, and the evidence points to Jesus having actually existed.