Was Jesus an Historical Figure?

One last comment

I'm gonna make a few comments even though in my last comment to Zindler, I said I was through.

First, I accidentally put the above comment here under JP's Josephus argument instead of under his Tacitus argument. My point still stands. Adding Tacitus to the roster pushes Jesus so far over the historicity burden of proof, it isn't even funny. Tacitus isn't just "generally reliable". According to scholars who study him, and antiquity in general, he's very well beyond reliable. Look into works like those by Martin, Grant and Syme. Tacitus questioned his sources, and simply would not have reported something like this about Jesus without a good investigation. Unless one is willing to engage in a little speacial pleading here, the decision isn't that difficult. Tacitus is simply one of many hurdles the Christ myther fails to clear.

Regarding Josephus, one cannot simply remove the words, "Who was called Christ" and then say, "the passage still reads fine, even better since it goes along with my theory better now." For all this does is assume a forgery to prove one.

Reality check: We have nothing to suggest early Christians added and subtracted information from any text they wanted on a whim. Again, Christianity had not the power to do so for about 275 yrs, and didn;t even have that kind of power when it controlled the Roman world. The manuscript tradition for Josephus is just as good as most other works, which also come from largly Christian hand, of antiquity and not one manuscript omits these words.

Thus, its already going way beyond the evidence to suggest otherwise. Further, why would Josephus need go into any further discussion about James' role in the early Christian community? Again, this argument from silence proves nothing save for what Josephus chose to mention, and what he chose not to mention. It does not give justification to re-write other parts of the passage as we see fit. Moreover, as JP says, the passage is about neither Jesus nor James, but Ananus. James and Jesus are given passing mentions simply to clarify James' role in what Josephus believed to be the more important story. What happened to Ananus!

Ironically, if a Christian had got ahold of this, it would not read like it does now. It probably would say something like, "...brought before them the Brother of the Lord Jesus, the Christ, who was called James the Just. The head of the Christians. And was murdered at the Jews hands." The idea that Christians just got lucky by finding a passage that sounds a lot like what we know about the early church and inserted the words, "called Christ" and got away with it is silly.

The passage is just like Tacitus' reference. Its so mundane to negative in what it says about Jesus and James. Merely two passing names that Josephus never talks of again. Hardly something a Christian would forge. On top of all this, neither passage provides any apologetic content at all. Indeed, the reconsructed Testimonium, and the James reference, are both neutral to very negative in their assesment of Jesus and so provide us with nothing that other Christian sources didn't already say about him. That Jesus was a man who did miricles, was crucified, and had a brother named James was never once disputed by any ancient opponent or proponent of Christianity, Jew or Pagan. Thus, for the purpose of apologetics, they are totally useless! Josephus' comments on Jesus are authentic as the top Josephus scholars in the world, who, by the way, have nothing to lose from saying otherwise, assert over and over again. I know for the myther that sucks, but thats life.

Thats it! I'm out!