Historical Verification

[liamconnor]

I read again and again statements to the effect that the gospels relate "unverified stories".

This raises the question of what constitutes a "verified story". Obviously the criteria for ancient events will differ from current, and the majority of us here are interested in ancient events. So, let us leave out the miraculous. Let us take mundane historical claims, like the existence of two Roman soldiers mentioned only in Julius Caesar. Or if we want to bring the Bible into the mix, let's leave alone its miraculous claims and extract from them more mundane claims like, did "a" Jesus exist; or was 'a' Jesus crucified; did disciples of 'a' Jesus truly believe (i.e., no conspiracy theory; some strange psychology was at work) that they encountered their teacher after he was crucified and buried...?

how does one deem an ancient, mundane, historical claim as "verified"?


Does it entail the accumulation of independent witnesses? This seems to be the assumption of some members here, since they cast doubt on the very existence of "a" Jesus because he is mentioned outside of the N.T. only in a few (at best!) documents. But that indicates a very subjective criteria: how many independent witnesses do we need? Three? Four? A thousand? Who decides? Are such critics casting doubt on the existence of Lucius Voren and Titus Pollo because they are mentioned in only one document?

Or is historical verification far more nuanced a scientific endeavor? What does it take for you to believe a mundane historical claim?

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to post 4 by Zzyzx]

I don't care what you believe.

What I care about is that my beliefs are not deemed ridiculous.

You believe that a corpse came back to life and then flew away. How is that not the very definition of ridiculous?

Why would a corpse that came back to life not fly away, if he isnt eager to share the fate of Frankensteins Monster ?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to post 4 by Zzyzx]

I don't care what you believe.

What I care about is that my beliefs are not deemed ridiculous.

You believe that a corpse came back to life and then flew away. How is that not the very definition of ridiculous?

Why would a corpse that came back to life not fly away, if he isnt eager to share the fate of Frankensteins Monster ?

Since you put the question, Frankenstein's creation had no divine powers nor godly back up. Jesus did. It is a Question why the risen Jesus simply didn't sort them all out first thing Monday morning.

The only answer i can think of is that God wanted to save as many as possible before the prophetic script hit the fan. And only Jesusfaith can do that. So I suppose we have a good long time before every knee is likely to bow and God can say 'That's as good as it's going to get. Sound the trumps and fuel up the clouds'.

[The Nice Centurion]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #22]
Your answer to my question is supposedly correct, Though why would Jesus for 40 days stay thst suspiciously in the shadows?

The common given reason to his staying put and early descending I read, is that Pilatus would have taken him as an escaped criminal and killed him again.

Frankensteins Monster is hunted down by a mob in the movies, while in the original book he jumps off a ship in the arctic.

Better avoid that by ascending to heaven.

But taken into account his godly powers and backing, Tired of the Nonsenses question still stands.

Why did the savior tend to stay in the shadows and then fled to heaven?