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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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Tacitus Can't be a Witness of the "Historical Jesus"
- From American Atheists
By American Atheists - An Educational Organization for Atheists
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We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Appeal to Authority vs. Argument from Silence
Listing the opinion of a qualified credentialed historian with a specialty in Roman history is NOT an example of the "appeal to authority" fallacy.
The appeal to authority fallacy is when someone appeals to an authority who is not an authority. For instance, Britney Spears' book on Child Rearing says, "It is never good to spank a child otherwise he or she may have self-esteem problems later in life." This is a false appeal to authority, since Spears is a pop star and has no expertise in child psychology.
However, to quote a number of child psychologists on this matter is not a fallacy.
However, what the American atheists do is to use the "argument from silence" fallacy. Since the limited cache of surviving early Christian writings contain no reference to Tacitus, they must not have known of Tacitus' reference to Christ. Therefore, the reference must be a later addition. That's an argument from silence fallacy.
This is similar to arguing that since a single biography of Lincoln is not quoted among numerous later biographies of Lincoln, the book must be spurious and unreliable. If it was HEAVILY quoted by other biographers that could attest to its trustworthiness in the eyes of the author's contemporaries. But the opposite is not true.
Mere silence does NOT indicate that a historical reference is unrelaible of spurious.
- jcr4runner
December 8, 2009 8:22AM
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