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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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An Inadequate Argument Against Josephus' Testimony
Couldn't agree more.
Tacitus isn't even needed to begin with! The issue doesn't hinge on him!
For sure, testimony pushes the bar ever further beyond reasonable doubt, but we have reached that point long before Tacitus' work. For the existence of Jesus, we have four texts (the Gospels) that are in the style of Greco/Roman bios (lives), one historiography text (Acts), the testimony of Saul/Paul, who from his first letter tells us he was a former persecutor who knew the original disciples of Jesus, and that they agreed with his preaching (Gal 1:13-24; Gal 2:9-10), the testimony of the Pastorals, Hebrews author, 1 Clement....the list goes on.
It would be foolish to say that there are perhaps some historical/textual discrepencies in these works, some issues to sort through, but thats history! If anyone applied these ridiculous criteria to any other ancient sources whos textual/historical problems are far far far far worse than anything in the NT, we would have no history. We'd all be screaming, "Woe is us! We cannot know for sure either way! So we must presume the negative!"
From just the Christian testimony alone, we have a huge pool of resources. Of the kind that if it were in support of any figure of "secular" history, his existence would be beyond any doubt. But since its Jesus, well we have to have a Polaroid snapshot of him teaching. This whole thing is so nutty!
The testimony of Josephus and Tacitus, two of the most prized historians of this period, puts Jesus so firmly in history, that mythers are forced to coming just shy of denying anything can be known at all about ancient history at all. As JP said in his response to Zindler’s one weak argument, “Mr. Zindler is using a form of (historical) epistemology unknown to credentialed historians.”
The evidence is clear, if you deny Jesus existed, you better be applying your criteria fairly, and across the board with respect to all accepted historical knowledge. I think you’ll find how absurd your thinking is is you actually do go ahead an try this.
- fenrir23
December 18, 2008 6:09PM
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