Columbia PhD in Ancient History says Jesus never existed

[alwayson]

How do Christians respond to Dr. Richard Carrier?

There are several lectures and debates with him on youtube.

[East of Eden]

He may have been a credible historian but all he had were Christian sources.

And you know that how?

So are many historians through the centuries, yet they also used the only sources they had. Can you show any sources he could have drawn from other than Christian ones? There are none. That is the whole point of my argument.

By your reasoning we have to discard non-Christian sources as 'biased'. If you saw the miracles of Jesus, would you become a Christian? If so, by your reasoning your testimony would be worthless as 'biased'. And if you wouldn't become a Christian if seeing the Gospel events why are we having this conversation?

[East of Eden]

Are we debating other historical documents that have nothing to do with the OP? That's a whole different thread.

To be consistent, you would have to discard as unreliable the list of other ancient historical documents with far less credibility as far as time-gaps and numbers of copies of the documents than the NT.

Also, other historical documents don't have many others that contradict them on almost every point,

I have no idea what you're talking about. If you mean the minor differences in the Gospel accounts, that is the same as we see in court testimony today, agreement on the big picture but differences on minor details. If they were forgeries, why have ANY differences, or for that reason why make the Apostles look bad?

and they don't have known forgeries

We're not talking about the forgeries.

or exaggerated extraordinary claims.

But you only know them to be exaggerated if you ignore all testimony to the contrary. That is circular reasoning. You are basically taking the closed-minded view that miracles are a priori impossible, apparently because you've never seen one. IF God exists, miracles are no big deal.

I have already addressed this. A historian who writes long after the event he is reporting has only sources to use. He has no first hand knowledge and only relies on what is written or circulating orally.

Yes, thats generally how historians work. By your reasoning David McCulloch's book on John Adams can't be trusted either.

His only sources are Christian.

So what? Those closest to the Gospel events would most likely become Christians, or are you saying you would not become one if you saw the miracles?

Can you name a single source that he could have got all the information he wrote about that is non-christian? No you cannot. So where did he get the information?

You don't know where Tacitus got his information.

[Nickman]

He may have been a credible historian but all he had were Christian sources.

And you know that how?

What other sources can you show to exist outside of Christianity?

By your reasoning we have to discard non-Christian sources as 'biased'. If you saw the miracles of Jesus, would you become a Christian? If so, by your reasoning your testimony would be worthless as 'biased'. And if you wouldn't become a Christian if seeing the Gospel events why are we having this conversation?

We don't discard the sources, we show that they are not reliable representations of an extra-biblical source due to their bias of source material.

I was a Christian for 25 years. I never saw one miracle despite my devotion and zeal. I discredit the gospel sources because they are not eyewitness accounts, they are contradictory, and they date to the second century. They are copies of copies and I have no way to confirm any of what is written is actually true. Neither do you.

[stubbornone]

From what I know it's probably true that Acts (mis)used Josephus as a source, and obviously Josephus mentioned both of those people. Those are the only two sources of information regarding them which Wikipedia mentions. Josephus was born over 30 years after Judas of Galilee led his revolt, and was only 8 or 9 when Theudas died. Obviously anything he wrote about them was merely hearsay. So which contemporary sources are you talking about?[/quotes]

Josephus was the contemporary I spoke of. He may not have been alive during Judas of Galilee but he was during Theudas. He was close enough to both and wrote about both. Jesus would have been within a few years of his life and the whole christian movement he left behind would have been just as, if not more popular. We see nothing. John the Baptist seems to make it in the text, yet Jesus the most popular man of all time doesn't. I say most popular because I am using the gospels. I know they could be embellished and I agree they most likely were, but just going off of what we have he was very popular. He did so many things and had thousands of followers flocking from abroad. Judas of Galilee and Theudas had how many followers?

By whom was the First Apocalypse of James written? Is it even 'hearsay,' or is it much, much later stories? Why do you consider it a source worth discussing?

Im just showing that there are even more stories about James which are Christian. James is not considered Jesus' brother.

Paul wrote to the Galatian church:
"Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins. . . .
...after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother."

Isnt Paul's words stating "the lord's brother" hearsay as well? Who told him? Nothing is written by James. Nothing is written by Peter either to confirm this. Peters letters are of unknown authorship. How do we know what was written in the gospels about James is correct? Do we have anything to verify Paul's story?

To the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 9) he wrote:
"Do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?"
On both occasions Paul specifically distinguishes people as brothers of Jesus, unlike Peter or the apostles. Catholic apologetics aside, please provide your evidence that when Paul says 'brother' he does not mean brother.

Why is James nothing in the gospels? He has no influence other than total opposition. He is vaguely passed by in all of the gospels, yet in Acts he is the head of the Jerusalem church. We have nothing concrete about this figure James either. John never mentions James at all as being Jesus' brother, yet he later becomes the head of the church? The stories do not jive, and in a court of law would be thrown out.

Your source that "Ananus was against the Zealots" when he was high priest?

Here and here

You haven't provided any reason to suppose that scholars' views are wrong, and that the high priest had decided to kill members of other priestly families without Josephus bothering to explain why.

Your failing to realize that Josephus parallels the story in both his works, Antiquities and Wars. We see nothing of this James brother of Jesus in the Wars text, which goes even more in depth on Ananus.

Jesus was quite a common name. What makes you think that the two Jesus' are the same person? Josephus identifies who James' brother is - he's the one called Christ - but that leads us with near-certainty to the conclusion that he's mentioning the same event described by Hegesippus. We are not going to simply take your say-so that there was only one Jesus in Jerusalem, nor that Josephus was so unconcerned about priestly feuds, nor that the overwhelming majority of scholars are so ill-informed. It's called evidence, my friend - we want to see some.

I think Student answered this one for me.

Tacitus was not a Christian. He didn't like the Christians. So the source we have here is a credible non-Christian historian who was a Roman senator in the late 1st century.

He may have been a credible historian but all he had were Christian sources. So are many historians through the centuries, yet they also used the only sources they had. Can you show any sources he could have drawn from other than Christian ones? There are none. That is the whole point of my argument. Hegessipus is in the same boat. [/url]

And all of this asks a very simple question that Jesus Mythers seem prone to avoid like the plague. What DOES the evidence that is there tell us?

Why would someone refer to an entirely different person from Jesus, when talking about the origins of Christianity ... either on purpose or accidentally?

The entirety of your argument is speculative and has no other basis than assuming that contemporaries of Jesus were too stupid to know about what they were taling about, and then asks for YET more evidence as if the historical record and archaeological digs just produce them magically.

So instead of using Wells post hoc work and google to find potential 'differing' opinion, why not just answer, given your claimed level of expertise, what the record indicates?

The question of teh thread is what to make of Carrier's claims, and carrier isn't the one making these increasingly asinine and esoteric claims based on speculation.

"Carrier has written a number of polemics on the origins of Christianity and the historical figure of Jesus. In his contribution to The Empty Tomb Carrier argues that the earliest Christians probably believed Jesus had received a new body in the resurrection, and that stories of his old body disappearing from its tomb were developed later. He also argues it is less likely but still possible the original body of Jesus was misplaced or stolen. This work has received critical reviews including those by Philosophy professor Stephen T. Davis in Philosophia Christi[15] and Christian apologist Norman Geisler.[16] His application of Bayes Theorem to historical enquiry (specifically the historicity or otherwise of Jesus of Nazareth) was dismissed as 'amateurish' by Stephanie Fisher.[17]
Carrier has self-published a book arguing against the thesis that Christianity would never have succeeded unless there had been sufficient evidence confirming the supernatural resurrection of Jesus.[5] Carrier has also questioned the historicity of Jesus in some capacity. Though originally skeptical of the notion, and subsequently more agnostic, since 2005 he has considered it "very probable Jesus never actually existed as a historical person",[18] yet he also said "though I foresee a rising challenge among qualified experts against the assumption of historicity [of Jesus]...that remains only a hypothesis that has yet to survive proper peer review."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier

In short, what Carrier is arguing is that Jesus is not a real person unless you can verify, 2,000 years after the fact, that he committed supernatural events. Obviously, that is impossible to confirm or deny, 2,000 years after the fact - and is why Carrier's professional peers dismiss his works as 'amateurish'.

Now please explain you comments in light of your apparent thesis - which is that Jesus is a Myth?

Tell me, why is inexpert speculation about what ancient luminaries might have been referring to relevant as an academic question rather than with a bearing on the state of mind of a highly biased Jesus Myther?

Indeed, earlier in the thread, you are claiming that we ONLY have Paul, and now, when Paul confirms other things, you claim Paul is hearsay?

So, given that my first replies to your speculative copying from google was that it was deny at any cost, would you care to offer an explanation as to why the inexpert disregarding of evidence at all costs should be afforded a position of honesty, rather than the evaluation of existing evidence as an approximation of the truth.

Indeed, in each of your posts you simply find an excuse to ignore the historical record, but offer no cogent analysis on what it all means?

As you seem committed to claiming that Jesus is a Myth by claiming the accepted interpretations of Christian Evidence is flawed, then I believe you have a duty to explain what it all means?

Why indeed are there extra Biblical sources and references to Jesus? Why is Paul, who is talking with the Apostles and Seventy, to be ignored? Why are statement from Mark the Evangelist to be ignored - for example? The gospels entirely? Early Christian Historians? The Extra Biblical accounts, including gnostic and heretical (which, if inaccurate - are at least acknowledgement that Jesus very much lived), accounts, early Christian Writings? What do we make of the archaeological finds that further verify the existence of Jesus?

Please, tell me why all that counts for nothing, and why, just like Wells who sends his entire volume raising conflicting standards to exclude everything (which is exactly what you are doing), to be taken seriously at all?

Indeed, your attempts, parallel as they are to Wells, have been examined by the foremost minds on the subject, and their conclusion is quite simple:

"Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."

Indeed, these same scholars would call into question the very nature of your inexpert claims about what the documents mean:

"Amateurs often disregard the crucial importance of field-familiarity, i.e. that one must have a long and deep acquaintance with a particular time and culture in order to make reliable judgments about the probable and improbable, the expected and unexpected, and all the other background assumptions necessary to understanding the significance of any particular fact or claim--in short, one must be cognizant not merely of the literary context of a statement, but its entire socio-historical context as well. And that is no easy thing to achieve."

http://bede.org.uk/price1.htm

By all means, you are not listing even a single Christian secondary source that you are in disagreement with - and a broad narrative basis would be necessary before your speculations about what ancient texts refer to could even be considered valid. Yet here you are claiming that Jesus should be present in every text based on his popularity at the time? Why would that be?

For example, Joel Osteen is a popular Christian today, but someone coming through the US an categorizing US religion, may not have met him, and may find that others are more important.

Once again, speculatively demanding that a piece of evidence include something, and thus ignoring the great body of evidence that DOES exist is proof of nothing more than wishful thinking.

Tell me, why should anyone take the claim that the EVIDENCE over there should be ignored because it is not HERE?

That makes no sense does it?

Indeed, it doesn't even address the interpretation and analysis of the evidence we do have and appears to be little more than attempted misdirection (as does the rambling about James and whether he was the brother of Jesus - which only seems to add that there was indeed a Jesus does it not?)

Again, your analysis seems to be deny at any cost rather than to seek truth, and I once again ask you why your analysis should be treated as an honest search for truth rather than an argument to deny at any cost/absurdity?

[Nickman]

To be consistent, you would have to discard as unreliable the list of other ancient historical documents with far less credibility as far as time-gaps and numbers of copies of the documents than the NT.

We are not debating documents outside of Christian history. Why are you going there?

I have no idea what you're talking about. If you mean the minor differences in the Gospel accounts, that is the same as we see in court testimony today, agreement on the big picture but differences on minor details. If they were forgeries, why have ANY differences, or for that reason why make the Apostles look bad?

Minor differences? Mark and John don't speak of a Virgin birth, Matthew and Luke do but with completely different events and contradictory genealogies. Minor differences? I could add many more if need be.

We're not talking about the forgeries.

Forgeries and/or interpolations same thing

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Bible_interpolation

But you only know them to be exaggerated if you ignore all testimony to the contrary. That is circular reasoning. You are basically taking the closed-minded view that miracles are a priori impossible, apparently because you've never seen one. IF God exists, miracles are no big deal.

I love how you prove my point with "IF".

Yes, thats generally how historians work. By your reasoning David McCulloch's book on John Adams can't be trusted either.

Im not familiar with his works. I cannot comment. My point is that we have a known history of Christian writings being added to, taken from, accepted, denied, destroyed, and debated over. The story is never been clear at all. Not one bit. It also never makes it into contemporary sources. What is written concerning those events is all hearsay on a gross level.

So what? Those closest to the Gospel events would most likely become Christians, or are you saying you would not become one if you saw the miracles?

Thanks for agreeing. Im not sure any miracles ever occured.

You don't know where Tacitus got his information.

I have a really good idea.

[Nickman]

From what I know it's probably true that Acts (mis)used Josephus as a source, and obviously Josephus mentioned both of those people. Those are the only two sources of information regarding them which Wikipedia mentions. Josephus was born over 30 years after Judas of Galilee led his revolt, and was only 8 or 9 when Theudas died. Obviously anything he wrote about them was merely hearsay. So which contemporary sources are you talking about?[/quotes]

Josephus was the contemporary I spoke of. He may not have been alive during Judas of Galilee but he was during Theudas. He was close enough to both and wrote about both. Jesus would have been within a few years of his life and the whole christian movement he left behind would have been just as, if not more popular. We see nothing. John the Baptist seems to make it in the text, yet Jesus the most popular man of all time doesn't. I say most popular because I am using the gospels. I know they could be embellished and I agree they most likely were, but just going off of what we have he was very popular. He did so many things and had thousands of followers flocking from abroad. Judas of Galilee and Theudas had how many followers?

By whom was the First Apocalypse of James written? Is it even 'hearsay,' or is it much, much later stories? Why do you consider it a source worth discussing?

Im just showing that there are even more stories about James which are Christian. James is not considered Jesus' brother.

Paul wrote to the Galatian church:
"Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins. . . .
...after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother."

Isnt Paul's words stating "the lord's brother" hearsay as well? Who told him? Nothing is written by James. Nothing is written by Peter either to confirm this. Peters letters are of unknown authorship. How do we know what was written in the gospels about James is correct? Do we have anything to verify Paul's story?

To the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 9) he wrote:
"Do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?"
On both occasions Paul specifically distinguishes people as brothers of Jesus, unlike Peter or the apostles. Catholic apologetics aside, please provide your evidence that when Paul says 'brother' he does not mean brother.

Why is James nothing in the gospels? He has no influence other than total opposition. He is vaguely passed by in all of the gospels, yet in Acts he is the head of the Jerusalem church. We have nothing concrete about this figure James either. John never mentions James at all as being Jesus' brother, yet he later becomes the head of the church? The stories do not jive, and in a court of law would be thrown out.

Your source that "Ananus was against the Zealots" when he was high priest?

Here and here

You haven't provided any reason to suppose that scholars' views are wrong, and that the high priest had decided to kill members of other priestly families without Josephus bothering to explain why.

Your failing to realize that Josephus parallels the story in both his works, Antiquities and Wars. We see nothing of this James brother of Jesus in the Wars text, which goes even more in depth on Ananus.

Jesus was quite a common name. What makes you think that the two Jesus' are the same person? Josephus identifies who James' brother is - he's the one called Christ - but that leads us with near-certainty to the conclusion that he's mentioning the same event described by Hegesippus. We are not going to simply take your say-so that there was only one Jesus in Jerusalem, nor that Josephus was so unconcerned about priestly feuds, nor that the overwhelming majority of scholars are so ill-informed. It's called evidence, my friend - we want to see some.

I think Student answered this one for me.

Tacitus was not a Christian. He didn't like the Christians. So the source we have here is a credible non-Christian historian who was a Roman senator in the late 1st century.

He may have been a credible historian but all he had were Christian sources. So are many historians through the centuries, yet they also used the only sources they had. Can you show any sources he could have drawn from other than Christian ones? There are none. That is the whole point of my argument. Hegessipus is in the same boat. [/url]

And all of this asks a very simple question that Jesus Mythers seem prone to avoid like the plague. What DOES the evidence that is there tell us?

Why would someone refer to an entirely different person from Jesus, when talking about the origins of Christianity ... either on purpose or accidentally?

The entirety of your argument is speculative and has no other basis than assuming that contemporaries of Jesus were too stupid to know about what they were taling about, and then asks for YET more evidence as if the historical record and archaeological digs just produce them magically.

So instead of using Wells post hoc work and google to find potential 'differing' opinion, why not just answer, given your claimed level of expertise, what the record indicates?

The question of teh thread is what to make of Carrier's claims, and carrier isn't the one making these increasingly asinine and esoteric claims based on speculation.

"Carrier has written a number of polemics on the origins of Christianity and the historical figure of Jesus. In his contribution to The Empty Tomb Carrier argues that the earliest Christians probably believed Jesus had received a new body in the resurrection, and that stories of his old body disappearing from its tomb were developed later. He also argues it is less likely but still possible the original body of Jesus was misplaced or stolen. This work has received critical reviews including those by Philosophy professor Stephen T. Davis in Philosophia Christi[15] and Christian apologist Norman Geisler.[16] His application of Bayes Theorem to historical enquiry (specifically the historicity or otherwise of Jesus of Nazareth) was dismissed as 'amateurish' by Stephanie Fisher.[17]
Carrier has self-published a book arguing against the thesis that Christianity would never have succeeded unless there had been sufficient evidence confirming the supernatural resurrection of Jesus.[5] Carrier has also questioned the historicity of Jesus in some capacity. Though originally skeptical of the notion, and subsequently more agnostic, since 2005 he has considered it "very probable Jesus never actually existed as a historical person",[18] yet he also said "though I foresee a rising challenge among qualified experts against the assumption of historicity [of Jesus]...that remains only a hypothesis that has yet to survive proper peer review."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier

In short, what Carrier is arguing is that Jesus is not a real person unless you can verify, 2,000 years after the fact, that he committed supernatural events. Obviously, that is impossible to confirm or deny, 2,000 years after the fact - and is why Carrier's professional peers dismiss his works as 'amateurish'.

Now please explain you comments in light of your apparent thesis - which is that Jesus is a Myth?

Tell me, why is inexpert speculation about what ancient luminaries might have been referring to relevant as an academic question rather than with a bearing on the state of mind of a highly biased Jesus Myther?

Indeed, earlier in the thread, you are claiming that we ONLY have Paul, and now, when Paul confirms other things, you claim Paul is hearsay?

So, given that my first replies to your speculative copying from google was that it was deny at any cost, would you care to offer an explanation as to why the inexpert disregarding of evidence at all costs should be afforded a position of honesty, rather than the evaluation of existing evidence as an approximation of the truth.

Indeed, in each of your posts you simply find an excuse to ignore the historical record, but offer no cogent analysis on what it all means?

As you seem committed to claiming that Jesus is a Myth by claiming the accepted interpretations of Christian Evidence is flawed, then I believe you have a duty to explain what it all means?

Why indeed are there extra Biblical sources and references to Jesus? Why is Paul, who is talking with the Apostles and Seventy, to be ignored? Why are statement from Mark the Evangelist to be ignored - for example? The gospels entirely? Early Christian Historians? The Extra Biblical accounts, including gnostic and heretical (which, if inaccurate - are at least acknowledgement that Jesus very much lived), accounts, early Christian Writings? What do we make of the archaeological finds that further verify the existence of Jesus?

Please, tell me why all that counts for nothing, and why, just like Wells who sends his entire volume raising conflicting standards to exclude everything (which is exactly what you are doing), to be taken seriously at all?

Indeed, your attempts, parallel as they are to Wells, have been examined by the foremost minds on the subject, and their conclusion is quite simple:

"Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."

Indeed, these same scholars would call into question the very nature of your inexpert claims about what the documents mean:

"Amateurs often disregard the crucial importance of field-familiarity, i.e. that one must have a long and deep acquaintance with a particular time and culture in order to make reliable judgments about the probable and improbable, the expected and unexpected, and all the other background assumptions necessary to understanding the significance of any particular fact or claim--in short, one must be cognizant not merely of the literary context of a statement, but its entire socio-historical context as well. And that is no easy thing to achieve."

http://bede.org.uk/price1.htm

By all means, you are not listing even a single Christian secondary source that you are in disagreement with - and a broad narrative basis would be necessary before your speculations about what ancient texts refer to could even be considered valid. Yet here you are claiming that Jesus should be present in every text based on his popularity at the time? Why would that be?

For example, Joel Osteen is a popular Christian today, but someone coming through the US an categorizing US religion, may not have met him, and may find that others are more important.

Once again, speculatively demanding that a piece of evidence include something, and thus ignoring the great body of evidence that DOES exist is proof of nothing more than wishful thinking.

Tell me, why should anyone take the claim that the EVIDENCE over there should be ignored because it is not HERE?

That makes no sense does it?

Indeed, it doesn't even address the interpretation and analysis of the evidence we do have and appears to be little more than attempted misdirection (as does the rambling about James and whether he was the brother of Jesus - which only seems to add that there was indeed a Jesus does it not?)

Again, your analysis seems to be deny at any cost rather than to seek truth, and I once again ask you why your analysis should be treated as an honest search for truth rather than an argument to deny at any cost/absurdity?

This post is way too long and all over the place. After reading it I will direct you to all that I have written thus far which addresses each argument you have. Address the specific points and keep it short enough for a proper debate. Im debating four people and everything you posted I have addressed in posts to them. I don't want to have to repeat all I have already written in one new giant post, when you can get the answer to your questions from previous material.

[stubbornone]

He may have been a credible historian but all he had were Christian sources.

And you know that how?

What other sources can you show to exist outside of Christianity?

#1 - you can use google, and that question has already been answered and sources have been provided for you. You are clearly choosing to ignore them.

#2 - you have to deal with the evidence that is there, not ask for additional sources. Your problem set is not absurdity and continuing to raise standards to the point that antiquity can never reach it. It is examining what is there:

And, to above.

http://books.google.com/books?id=lwzliM ... CDEQ6AEwAA

An ENTIRE scholarly volume, peer reviewed no less, addressing exactly what you claim.

Indeed, why again, when you are claiming that you are familiar enough with the evidence to be making a studied and reasonable case, are we to take your claims seriously at all? Here you are asking for the basics of the evidental set, again I remind you, and then pointedly ignoring it.

Why indeed should we pretend that your intent is merely to deny at any cost when you refuse utterly to even read what you ask for? To go through the agony of typing in "The Extra Biblical Evidence for Jesus."

https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Ext ... e&ie=UTF-8

Well, now all you have to do is click on the google results, and pursue the results to ... educate yourself on the basics of the evidence you claimed drove your opinion.

In the meantime, it is worth noting that this denial is in keeping with the more conspiratorial aspects of the Jesus Myth. The absurdity of denial rather than an honest search for the truth.

Indeed, as the scholars ask, and in light of such a blatant display of ignorance on the evidence and its availability, why indeed should we treat the Jesus Myth as a valid intellectual stance at all?

When denying something clearly on evidence? What do we make of that?

[stubbornone]

From what I know it's probably true that Acts (mis)used Josephus as a source, and obviously Josephus mentioned both of those people. Those are the only two sources of information regarding them which Wikipedia mentions. Josephus was born over 30 years after Judas of Galilee led his revolt, and was only 8 or 9 when Theudas died. Obviously anything he wrote about them was merely hearsay. So which contemporary sources are you talking about?[/quotes]

Josephus was the contemporary I spoke of. He may not have been alive during Judas of Galilee but he was during Theudas. He was close enough to both and wrote about both. Jesus would have been within a few years of his life and the whole christian movement he left behind would have been just as, if not more popular. We see nothing. John the Baptist seems to make it in the text, yet Jesus the most popular man of all time doesn't. I say most popular because I am using the gospels. I know they could be embellished and I agree they most likely were, but just going off of what we have he was very popular. He did so many things and had thousands of followers flocking from abroad. Judas of Galilee and Theudas had how many followers?

By whom was the First Apocalypse of James written? Is it even 'hearsay,' or is it much, much later stories? Why do you consider it a source worth discussing?

Im just showing that there are even more stories about James which are Christian. James is not considered Jesus' brother.

Paul wrote to the Galatian church:
"Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins. . . .
...after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother."

Isnt Paul's words stating "the lord's brother" hearsay as well? Who told him? Nothing is written by James. Nothing is written by Peter either to confirm this. Peters letters are of unknown authorship. How do we know what was written in the gospels about James is correct? Do we have anything to verify Paul's story?

To the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 9) he wrote:
"Do we have no right to eat and drink? Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?"
On both occasions Paul specifically distinguishes people as brothers of Jesus, unlike Peter or the apostles. Catholic apologetics aside, please provide your evidence that when Paul says 'brother' he does not mean brother.

Why is James nothing in the gospels? He has no influence other than total opposition. He is vaguely passed by in all of the gospels, yet in Acts he is the head of the Jerusalem church. We have nothing concrete about this figure James either. John never mentions James at all as being Jesus' brother, yet he later becomes the head of the church? The stories do not jive, and in a court of law would be thrown out.

Your source that "Ananus was against the Zealots" when he was high priest?

Here and here

You haven't provided any reason to suppose that scholars' views are wrong, and that the high priest had decided to kill members of other priestly families without Josephus bothering to explain why.

Your failing to realize that Josephus parallels the story in both his works, Antiquities and Wars. We see nothing of this James brother of Jesus in the Wars text, which goes even more in depth on Ananus.

Jesus was quite a common name. What makes you think that the two Jesus' are the same person? Josephus identifies who James' brother is - he's the one called Christ - but that leads us with near-certainty to the conclusion that he's mentioning the same event described by Hegesippus. We are not going to simply take your say-so that there was only one Jesus in Jerusalem, nor that Josephus was so unconcerned about priestly feuds, nor that the overwhelming majority of scholars are so ill-informed. It's called evidence, my friend - we want to see some.

I think Student answered this one for me.

Tacitus was not a Christian. He didn't like the Christians. So the source we have here is a credible non-Christian historian who was a Roman senator in the late 1st century.

He may have been a credible historian but all he had were Christian sources. So are many historians through the centuries, yet they also used the only sources they had. Can you show any sources he could have drawn from other than Christian ones? There are none. That is the whole point of my argument. Hegessipus is in the same boat. [/url]

And all of this asks a very simple question that Jesus Mythers seem prone to avoid like the plague. What DOES the evidence that is there tell us?

Why would someone refer to an entirely different person from Jesus, when talking about the origins of Christianity ... either on purpose or accidentally?

The entirety of your argument is speculative and has no other basis than assuming that contemporaries of Jesus were too stupid to know about what they were taling about, and then asks for YET more evidence as if the historical record and archaeological digs just produce them magically.

So instead of using Wells post hoc work and google to find potential 'differing' opinion, why not just answer, given your claimed level of expertise, what the record indicates?

The question of teh thread is what to make of Carrier's claims, and carrier isn't the one making these increasingly asinine and esoteric claims based on speculation.

"Carrier has written a number of polemics on the origins of Christianity and the historical figure of Jesus. In his contribution to The Empty Tomb Carrier argues that the earliest Christians probably believed Jesus had received a new body in the resurrection, and that stories of his old body disappearing from its tomb were developed later. He also argues it is less likely but still possible the original body of Jesus was misplaced or stolen. This work has received critical reviews including those by Philosophy professor Stephen T. Davis in Philosophia Christi[15] and Christian apologist Norman Geisler.[16] His application of Bayes Theorem to historical enquiry (specifically the historicity or otherwise of Jesus of Nazareth) was dismissed as 'amateurish' by Stephanie Fisher.[17]
Carrier has self-published a book arguing against the thesis that Christianity would never have succeeded unless there had been sufficient evidence confirming the supernatural resurrection of Jesus.[5] Carrier has also questioned the historicity of Jesus in some capacity. Though originally skeptical of the notion, and subsequently more agnostic, since 2005 he has considered it "very probable Jesus never actually existed as a historical person",[18] yet he also said "though I foresee a rising challenge among qualified experts against the assumption of historicity [of Jesus]...that remains only a hypothesis that has yet to survive proper peer review."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier

In short, what Carrier is arguing is that Jesus is not a real person unless you can verify, 2,000 years after the fact, that he committed supernatural events. Obviously, that is impossible to confirm or deny, 2,000 years after the fact - and is why Carrier's professional peers dismiss his works as 'amateurish'.

Now please explain you comments in light of your apparent thesis - which is that Jesus is a Myth?

Tell me, why is inexpert speculation about what ancient luminaries might have been referring to relevant as an academic question rather than with a bearing on the state of mind of a highly biased Jesus Myther?

Indeed, earlier in the thread, you are claiming that we ONLY have Paul, and now, when Paul confirms other things, you claim Paul is hearsay?

So, given that my first replies to your speculative copying from google was that it was deny at any cost, would you care to offer an explanation as to why the inexpert disregarding of evidence at all costs should be afforded a position of honesty, rather than the evaluation of existing evidence as an approximation of the truth.

Indeed, in each of your posts you simply find an excuse to ignore the historical record, but offer no cogent analysis on what it all means?

As you seem committed to claiming that Jesus is a Myth by claiming the accepted interpretations of Christian Evidence is flawed, then I believe you have a duty to explain what it all means?

Why indeed are there extra Biblical sources and references to Jesus? Why is Paul, who is talking with the Apostles and Seventy, to be ignored? Why are statement from Mark the Evangelist to be ignored - for example? The gospels entirely? Early Christian Historians? The Extra Biblical accounts, including gnostic and heretical (which, if inaccurate - are at least acknowledgement that Jesus very much lived), accounts, early Christian Writings? What do we make of the archaeological finds that further verify the existence of Jesus?

Please, tell me why all that counts for nothing, and why, just like Wells who sends his entire volume raising conflicting standards to exclude everything (which is exactly what you are doing), to be taken seriously at all?

Indeed, your attempts, parallel as they are to Wells, have been examined by the foremost minds on the subject, and their conclusion is quite simple:

"Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."

Indeed, these same scholars would call into question the very nature of your inexpert claims about what the documents mean:

"Amateurs often disregard the crucial importance of field-familiarity, i.e. that one must have a long and deep acquaintance with a particular time and culture in order to make reliable judgments about the probable and improbable, the expected and unexpected, and all the other background assumptions necessary to understanding the significance of any particular fact or claim--in short, one must be cognizant not merely of the literary context of a statement, but its entire socio-historical context as well. And that is no easy thing to achieve."

http://bede.org.uk/price1.htm

By all means, you are not listing even a single Christian secondary source that you are in disagreement with - and a broad narrative basis would be necessary before your speculations about what ancient texts refer to could even be considered valid. Yet here you are claiming that Jesus should be present in every text based on his popularity at the time? Why would that be?

For example, Joel Osteen is a popular Christian today, but someone coming through the US an categorizing US religion, may not have met him, and may find that others are more important.

Once again, speculatively demanding that a piece of evidence include something, and thus ignoring the great body of evidence that DOES exist is proof of nothing more than wishful thinking.

Tell me, why should anyone take the claim that the EVIDENCE over there should be ignored because it is not HERE?

That makes no sense does it?

Indeed, it doesn't even address the interpretation and analysis of the evidence we do have and appears to be little more than attempted misdirection (as does the rambling about James and whether he was the brother of Jesus - which only seems to add that there was indeed a Jesus does it not?)

Again, your analysis seems to be deny at any cost rather than to seek truth, and I once again ask you why your analysis should be treated as an honest search for truth rather than an argument to deny at any cost/absurdity?

This post is way too long and all over the place. After reading it I will direct you to all that I have written thus far which addresses each argument you have. Address the specific points and keep it short enough for a proper debate. Im debating four people and everything you posted I have addressed in posts to them. I don't want to have to repeat all I have already written in one new giant post, when you can get the answer to your questions from previous material.

No, you have not.

Once again, having rebutted your position you are essentially asking that we respect your uneducated speculation about Jesus because ... you are too lazy to respond?

Really?

By all means, please point to your analysis of what the evidence for Jesus that is on the record actually means then, if not that Jesus existed? Particularly in light of your recent RE-ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, that you don't even know that there is both extra-Biblical (indeed archaeological), and extra-Christian sources that plainly mention Jesus?

Why treat your speculation as anything other than a random wild guess to support your own biases? That is what it is isn't it?

[stubbornone]

To be consistent, you would have to discard as unreliable the list of other ancient historical documents with far less credibility as far as time-gaps and numbers of copies of the documents than the NT.

We are not debating documents outside of Christian history. Why are you going there?

Because other documents, from the same period are examined objectively and critically to weight them in reaching conclusions.

One can accurately assume that the standards used to weight period documents OUTSIDE of Christian history would be applicable in weighing CHRISTIAN history as well.

Indeed, the reverse is true, if we weight CHRISTIAN sources one way, that measurement should also work for the weighing of evidence OUTSIDE Christian history.

If you want one standard for that OUTSIDE Christian history and another standard to judge Christian History, then your intent in clearly not the objectively weighing of evidence, but the use of double standards to ignore evidence.

Its called STANDARDS.

That you so willfully exclude or misunderstand them? Well, once again, why should we treat your analysis, in view of your radically different measuring of evidence, as anything other than a denial to the point of absurdity argument?

[Nickman]

#1 - you can use google, and that question has already been answered and sources have been provided for you. You are clearly choosing to ignore them.

#2 - you have to deal with the evidence that is there, not ask for additional sources. Your problem set is not absurdity and continuing to raise standards to the point that antiquity can never reach it. It is examining what is there:

#1- The evidence provided to me has been addressed and continues to be addressed with people that actually know debate etiquette, Mithrae, Historia, Student, Eden.

#2- I am examining what is there and what is being debated currently. You just seem to want to jump in and derail what is already being addressed with blanket statements.

And, to above.

http://books.google.com/books?id=lwzliM ... CDEQ6AEwAA

An ENTIRE scholarly volume, peer reviewed no less, addressing exactly what you claim.

Indeed, why again, when you are claiming that you are familiar enough with the evidence to be making a studied and reasonable case, are we to take your claims seriously at all? Here you are asking for the basics of the evidental set, again I remind you, and then pointedly ignoring it.

Why indeed should we pretend that your intent is merely to deny at any cost when you refuse utterly to even read what you ask for? To go through the agony of typing in "The Extra Biblical Evidence for Jesus."

Why do you continue to post links and say here read this, which is not in accordance with the rules? You must make an argument, add sources, or add your reason for the argument and then show where your source backs up your claim. You do this by quoting from the link you provide. It's quite simple.

https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Ext ... e&ie=UTF-8

Well, now all you have to do is click on the google results, and pursue the results to ... educate yourself on the basics of the evidence you claimed drove your opinion.

In the meantime, it is worth noting that this denial is in keeping with the more conspiratorial aspects of the Jesus Myth. The absurdity of denial rather than an honest search for the truth.

Indeed, as the scholars ask, and in light of such a blatant display of ignorance on the evidence and its availability, why indeed should we treat the Jesus Myth as a valid intellectual stance at all?

When denying something clearly on evidence? What do we make of that?

Here again you provide a link and tell me to educate myself. You should educate yourself on forum rules and etiquette. How can I debate a person who doesn't follow simple guidelines?