The Extra Biblical Evidence for the existence of Jesus

a reply to: windword

No, not the vast majority of scholars. The vast majority of Christian scholars that are desperately biased, maybe. That whole text stinks to high heaven! There's no redeeming clause within that whole pile of dog doo!

Feldman is jewish. I gave you a quote containing many Jewish Scholars. If anyone wanted Jesus to be a nonexistant person it would be a jew.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Feldman is jewish. I gave you a quote containing many Jewish Scholars. If anyone wanted Jesus to be a nonexistant person it would be a jew.

And yet, this is Feldman's final analysis on the subject:

Thus, even though Josephus may not have referred to Jesus, that does not necessarily imply that there was no historical Jesus. While a reference to Jesus would help substantiate the historicity of Jesus, it, by the same token, wouldn't necessarily settle the question outright, especially when the supposed reference is the subject of such severe textual difficulties. While the appeal to the text of Josephus is often made in the attempt to secure the place of Jesus as a figure in history, the text of Josephus itself is far too insecure to carry the burden assigned to it.

a reply to: windword

And I am the one that is lying. That is the writer of the articles position.

www.earlychristianwritings.com...



Here is the source so everyone can go and see that is not a quote or the position of Feldman in fact his position is the authenticity is all most unanimously accepted I quoted that to you with the reference to the quote.

Louis H. Feldman, the authenticity of this passage "has been almost universally acknowledged" by scholars. (Feldman, "Josephus," Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pages 990-91).

I'm done. You are claiming I am a liar while being as dishonest as it gets.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Louis H. Feldman, the authenticity of this passage "has been almost universally acknowledged" by scholars. (Feldman, "Josephus," Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, pages 990-91).

That is referring to the passage about James. The existence of James is not in dispute. Whether or not he was the blood brother of Jesus of Nazareth is.

Feldman has promoted the idea that the " Testimonium Flavianum" was written by Eusebius, as I said earlier.

a reply to: windword

That is referring to the passage about James. The existence of James is not in dispute. Whether or not he was the blood brother of Jesus of Nazareth is.

While you are right, and I made a mistake. This is indeed in reference to that passage. So there is his position on Jesus being the blood brother of James.


Here is what I should have quoted sorry:

"The most probably view seems to be that our text represents substantially what Josephus wrote, but that some alterations have been made by a Christian interpolator." (p. 49, Loeb edition)

Feldman has promoted the idea that the " Testimonium Flavianum" was written by Eusebius, as I said earlier.

Maybe Eusebius doctored it up. I am not one to say it is completely authentic, but again I ask where is another example of something like this occurring in history. 32 some odd sources all about a non-existent person?

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

32 some odd sources all about a non-existent person?

I don't know where you get the number 32, but it matters little.

HERCULES. SERAPIS. MITHRA. Just to name a few.

a reply to: windword

Ok now give me a source about one of those people that was written to be considered actual history.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

What? Are you kidding? They were all at one time considered to have been real, living, breathing beings!

Justin Maryr's First Apology confirms the belief that pagan gods were real.

And when we say also that the Word, who is the first-birth of God, was produced without sexual union, and that He, Jesus Christ, our Teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound NOTHING DIFFERENT from WHAT YOU BELIEVE regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter. For you know how many sons your esteemed writers ascribed to Jupiter: Mercury, the interpreting word and teacher of all; AEsculapius, who, though he was a great physician, was struck by a thunderbolt, and so ascended to heaven; and Bacchus too, after he had been torn limb from limb; and Hercules, when he had committed himself to the flames to escape his toils; and the sons of Leda, and Dioscuri; and Perseus, son of Danae; and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to heaven on the horse Pegasus. For what shall I say of Ariadne, and those who, like her, have been declared to be set among the stars?
www.answering-christianity.com...

Ovid wrote of the deification of Julius Caesar:

Though Aesculapius came as a stranger to our temples, Caesar is a god in his own city. Outstanding in war or peace, it was not so much his wars that ended in great victories, or his actions at home, or his swiftly won fame, that set him among the stars, a fiery comet, as his descendant. There is no greater achievement among Caesar’s actions than that he stood father to our emperor. Is it a greater thing to have conquered the sea-going Britons; to have led his victorious ships up the seven-mouthed flood of the papyrus-bearing Nile; to have brought the rebellious Numidians, under Juba of Cinyps, and Pontus, swollen with the name of Mithridates, under the people of Quirinus; to have earned many triumphs and celebrated few; than to have sponsored such a man, with whom, as ruler of all, you gods have richly favoured the human race? Therefore, in order for the emperor not to have been born of mortal seed, Caesar needed to be made a god.
www.poetryintranslation.com...

So did Livy, VIrgil and Horace.
www.academia.edu...

Philo of Alexandria taught a revolutionary philosophy that didn't take biblical stories and things like angels and demons, monsters and giants, as real, but as allegory.

Plutarch, in his famous letter to Clea, also, braces her for the news that the gods and goddessess of old and new are but mere allegory for factions of nature and natural life.

Therefore, Clea, whenever you hear the traditional tales which the Egyptians tell about the gods, their wanderings, dismemberments, and many experiences of this sort, you must remember what has been already said, and you must not think that any of these tales actually happened in the manner in which they are related.
...
If, then, you listen to the stories about the gods in this way, accepting them from those who interpret the story reverently and philosophically, and if you always perform and observe the established rites of worship, and believe that no sacrifice that you can offer, no deed that you may do will be more likely to find favour with the gods than your belief in their true nature, you may avoid superstition which is no less an evil than atheism.
penelope.uchicago.edu...*/A.html

REVOLUTIONARY!

Good advice for biblical students as well! Not much has changed. There are those who take these stories literally, falling into superstition, those who see them as allegorical usefulness, and those who ignore them in disbelief, falling into atheism.

a reply to: windword

Okay I don't think I was clear enough. Give me sources that are of a genre that would me the writers considered what they were writing was true historical events. The deification of Caesar is not a source about a non existent person is the embellishment of an existing person. My question is where is the graeco-roman biography of Hercules? What about the biography of Serapis?

None of the text are written in the genre. I am not saying people didn't believe them to be real. I am saying no one wrote biographies about these non-existent people. No one wrote letters to other people claiming to have met the people who walked with Hercules.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Why do reject Jerome's account of real pagan gods? What about the pyramid texts?

My question is where is the graeco-roman biography of Hercules?

There's Homer's LABORS OF HERACLES and Romulus and Remus, the twin brothers who founded Rome and more in The Odyssey and The Iliad.

There's The Gilgamesh Epic, The Vedas and the capers of Krishna, to name just a few.

No one wrote letters to other people claiming to have met the people who walked with Hercules.

There's plenty of ancient literature of people having spiritual visitations from the gods, like Paul's claim of a vision of Christ. Paul never met Jesus of Nazareth. The gospels are anonymous and aren't first hand reports. Bible stories are just as fantastic as any Greek myths and just a reliable a Homer's works.