Jesus Christ is the most influential figure on the planet, with more than 2 billion worshippers worldwide and many more who fondly study his teachings. But what if he never existed? Many skeptics have posed this very question, and while true believers scoff at such suggestions, the debate is far from resolved. Jesus may have changed the world, but did he really walk the Earth?
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A Reliable Reference to a Historical Jesus
- From JP Holding
By J.P. Holding - Founder, Apologetics Ministries
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Bowdlerized Testimonium Flavanium
By presenting a bowdlerized form of the TF you admit that the Antiquities has been corrupted -- at least at this point. It is now merely arbitrary which parts you keep and which parts you get rid of. This has nothing to do with what the text was originally like. It merely reflects the current mores.
The TF has been rejected in toto since the time of Scaliger in the mid 1500s. Only with the beginning of the 20th c. was the situation reconsidered, though the methodology behind the result of this modern reconsideration is far from transparent. It seems to be something like: Well, Josephus couldn't have written "he was the christ", because Origen said that Josephus didn't believe that Jesus was the christ. Oh, and the appearance after three days looks a little too hard to justify in Josephus as well, but, hey, what's wrong with the rest? It's a nice succinct piece of witnessing. (Christians believe in christ. Christ crucified. Under Pilate. In Judea. Christians get martyred. Martyrdom brings sympathy for christians from ordinary people.)
That's called bowdlerization and it functionally renders the emended version of questionable value. That it's questionable doesn't have an impact on any apologetic mileage you can get out of it, but that has little to do with logic and reasoning. Tainted evidence is usually inadmissable. You wouldn't want someone's life to depend on tainted evidence in a court of law.
- spin December 23, 2008 4:16PM
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Mr. spin has created his own rules for historical epistemology
Once again it seems that mr. spin has created his own rules for historical epistemology. Regrettably, professional textual critics are not aware of his startling thesis that “guilt by association” renders other parts of a text inauthentic or suspicious once one interpolation is discovered.
In any event, his claims otherwise are quite erroneous. It is not “arbitrary” which parts are kept of left out; Josephan scholars have done in-depth analyses of the TF – line by line – to determine what portions are authentic and which are not. I suppose it would be asking too much of mr. spin to defend a thesis of inauthenticity for each portion the same way.
That the “TF has been rejected in toto since the time of Scaliger in the mid 1500s” is quite interesting, but irrelevant to the arguments presented by modern Josephan scholars like Mason, Feldman, and Thackery, who are light years ahead in their research and available evidence and many of whom who have not even a conceivable interest in “witnessing” for Christ (Feldman for example is Jewish). This is again a case of mr. spin avoiding the real arguments, I expect because they are too difficult for him to counter. One may find a line by line analysis of the TF in Ch. 1 of my book, Shattering the Christ Myth; the chapter is written by Christopher Price.
Mr. spin concludes, “Tainted evidence is usually inadmissable. You wouldn't want someone's life to depend on tainted evidence in a court of law.” I wonder what this has to do with anything, since “tainted evidence” is defined as that which is obtained by illegal means (eg, without a search warrant). Perhaps mr. spin is also advancing new definitions for the legal profession. I assume he means evidence that is somehow corrupted. However, since every work of ancient literature has interpolations and corruptions, by that criteria, he has once again determined that all classical scholars are foolishly wasting their time reconstructing history. We are indeed fortunate to have someone of mr. spin’s expertise available to us.
- JP Holding
December 31, 2008 10:18AM
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Epistemology and cherry-picking
I can appreciate Mr Holding's reluctance to contemplate the process of cherry-picking regarding the Testimonium Flavianum carried out by modern analysts. He is committed to the authenticity of the text for want of anything better. But cherry-picking is at the core of the modern analysis. That which specifically cannot belong is not necessarily all that doesn't belong. It is thus pure conjecture to decide that the identifiably problematical is the only material added to the text. That the conjecture is at the hands of Mr Holding's authorities doesn't change its conjectural nature.
I'm also amused at Mr Holding citing his acolyte Christopher Price as an expert regarding the Testimonium Flavianum. I didn't know that Price managed to get out of his legal obligations long enough to earn that expert status. My memory of his amateur antics is that he had little control of anything he talked about concerning the ancient literature. But perhaps it's any port in the storm for Mr Holding.
Lastly, Mr Holding takes exception to my using "tainted evidence" to describe, umm, evidence which has been tainted, ie a text which has recognized content that doesn't belong with no way of determining what else doesn't belong. Yes, there is a legal term which Mr Holding went off on a tangent about, but it is only a means for him not to deal with the issue of how a scholar, one s/he has noted foreign material in a text, can decide the original form of that text. Once a section of a text has been individuated as having problems with no coherent method provided of "sanatizing" the section, that part of the text loses its credibility. One may dispute my analysis, but one cannot ignore the issue as Mr Holding has done, yet again seeking the comforting arms of his authorities.
- spin December 31, 2008 5:39PM
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Mr. spin with a cherry on top
Mr. spin speaks of my alleged “reluctance to contemplate the process of cherry-picking regarding the Testimonium Flavianum carried out by modern analysts” in vain, apparently unaware that my book on the subject contains just such depth contemplations by Price, which I have little doubt mr. spin is ill-equipped to refute save by using ideological Dymo tape to apply labels like “pure conjecture” which in the end are the final refuge of a neophyte unable to confront the actual arguments, especially those by qualified sources like Feldman. We will apparently see no direct answer to myself or Price, or to scholars who present ways to decide the original form of the text.
I note that mr. spin also dodges his error in misapplying the term “tainted evidence.” Clearly, getting mr. spin to admit to any mistake on his part is akin to doing battle with the knight in Monty Python whose limbs have been shorn off and calls it but a flesh wound.
- JP Holding
January 2, 2009 8:50AM
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Hollow apologetic
I recently said, "One may dispute my analysis, but one cannot ignore the issue as Mr Holding has done, yet again seeking the comforting arms of his authorities." Mr Holding has proved me wrong: he can simply ignore the issue, though this time not appealing to authority, but to an amateur.
- spin January 2, 2009 3:44PM
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Legend of spin hollow
Mr. spin will not get off so easy, as Price uses experts to arrive at his conclusions. In any event there will clearly be no parsing analysis from him.
- JP Holding
January 3, 2009 12:22PM
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Dirty facts
When you decide to get your hands dirty with facts rather than relying on anyone else to do your work for you, you might learn something. As it is your vain babbling of names is useless to you. Layman cannot help you: he can't help himself. You avoid facts like they're dirty. Present a case of your own for those bits of the TF you'd like to keep. I'll hack it up for you. While you refuse to deal with the text, you say nothing.
- spin January 3, 2009 4:16PM
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Socrates
Is there any more historic proof of Socrates then there is of Jesus? Could Plato have made him up?
- mike1948
September 6, 2009 10:31PM
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Socrates WAS Jesus!
I suspect that Socrates was an amalgam of some unremarkable fellow that taught contemporaneously with another unremarkable fellow with the name 'Socrates' further amalgamated with a lot of controversial things Plato wanted to say, but was not willing to drink hemlock over.
He remains superior to the JC legend for a couple reasons, however, not the least of which is originality, but mostly for not being attributed with fantastic magical powers and mystical activities.
- Submariner September 21, 2009 11:44PM
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Socrates v. Jesus.
I never found Socrates particularly original, more of an upper-class heckler supporting the return of the dictatorship. Jesus may not have been original but at least he was for the working class. As for magical powers the only one I remember was his walking on water .
- mike1948
September 22, 2009 12:31AM
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hehe
That's funny. Socrates was dry - even sophomoric.
But I was referring to the fact that Plato, perhaps, was more original than the authors posing as the early church fathers who pretty much plagiarized the rest of the worlds messianic mysticism when fine tuning their dogma.
And I'm not the most read in the new testament, but I think there was something about resurrection, flying to heaven, and some communist thing about feeding the poor for free.
Incidently - this picture is someone upskirtesque.
- Submariner September 22, 2009 2:54AM
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