Non Chtristian sources for Livingston was Re: Josephus
Josh P Livingston errancy@infidels.org
Mon, 3 May 1999 21:56:27 -0700 (00925811787, 19990503.215632.-7031.0.joshlivingston@juno.com)
>> LIVINGSTON
>> Helen, at this point you have conceded the existence of at
>least four
>> independent communities that believed that a real person named
>Jesus
>> taught, in some cases did miracles, and died within their recent
>past.
>> You have conceded that Josephus made a mention of Jesus being a
>> historical figure in his recent past, doubtless you would concede
>that
>> Tacitus did the same. You haven't given any evidence that these
>sources
>> are in any way based on one another. Yet because some of these
>groups
>> developed "mythological" beliefs about Jesus you consider this
>evidence
>> for him having never existed. What kind of evidence that would
>> reasonable to obtain in the ancient world for a person of Jesus
>alleged
>> circumstances would lead you to believe that he really did exist?
>>
>>
>
>HELEN:
>This is a subject that has often been dealt with on the list. The
>Christians have
>gotten from their churches that there is all this proof of Jesus
>existence when
>there is actually far less than for most historical persons of the
>period. I will
>quickly review all that exist other than the stuff from Josephus.
>I'm going to quote from, _The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia
>-Release 6,
>which is very respectful of Christian claims.
>
>On Tacitus, Grolier has, "(Annals 15.44) records that the Christian
>movement began
>with Jesus, who was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate." Tacitus
>wrote his
>annals, which was a history of Rome from Augustus on, after 100 AD.
>The Christians
>had already caused problems in Rome and had been suppressed by this
>date. So as
>part of this history he mentions all this very briefly. He explains
>their origins
>in one sentence, but we don't know where got his information. The most
>logical
>guess would be from those who suppressed the Christians and they would
>have most
>logically got their information from the Christians so this is not an
>independent
>source. This is the same problem as Josephus, don't you see? We have
>no non
>Christian mention of Jesus written prior to the 90's. This is not only
>60 years
>after the crucifixion was supposed to have occurred, it is also 10
>years after the
>ten year period of war and destruction of the Jewish revolt.
>
>The other early non Christian mentions of Jesus are among the Romans,
>Suetonius
>who also wrote his history after 100, but apparently had access to the
>imperial
>library during much of the time he wrote it. He seem to use a series
>of edicts or
>something for a guide in his history of Claudius rule, according to
>Grolier,
>"(Claudius 25.4) refers to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome because
>of a riot
>instigated by one "Chrestus" in AD c.48, and this is usually taken to
>be a
>confused reference to the Christians and their founder." However,
>Grolier fails to
>mention the problem with this premise. The problem here is that the
>Roman were
>pretty good at finding out what was going on with riots in the capital
>city. Jesus
>certainly wasn't supposed to be in Rome in 48, so this really doesn't
>seem to be a
>reference to him or even his followers. There, also, were already
>supposed to be
>many Gentile followers by this date, especially away from Palestine,
>yet this is a
>Jewish riot. It seem not unreasonable to suspect that the Jesus cult
>was not the
>only cult to translate the Jewish title, "messiah" into the Greek
>word,
>"Christ". So this may just as reasonably be presumed to be a report of
>a riot by
>some one of the many Jewish messianic cults that we know existed at
>this time.
>
>There is also a letter by Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan, from
>the same
>basic period as the other early non Christian sources. I think this
>one dates to
>around the late 90's AD. Pliny says in the letter that he has tortured
> Christians
>at the emperor's request because they are not approved of and says
>that he has
>found that they sing praises to Christ as God. We can again assume his
>information
>is from the Christians and not an independent proof of their claim.
>
>Finally, we have the evidence from the Jewish source including the
>Talmud. Now,
>the oldest part of this were not written until 200 AD but these are a
>listing of
>the opinions of the Jewish high court for the period 100 BC to 200 AD
>and were
>carefully preserved so many people think they are pretty good history.
>Grolier
>says, "Most of the Jewish evidence is late and anti-Christian
>propaganda, but an
>early reference in the Babylonian Talmud says that Jeshu ha-Nocri was
>a false
>prophet who was hanged on the eve of the Passover for sorcery and
>false teaching."
>Christian historians have for centuries denied the connection between
>Yeshu
>ha-Nostri and the Jesus of the Christians. I agree with Grolier I
>think this is
>the Jewish origins of the Jesus myth. Unfortunately for Christian
>appoligists this
>Yeshu died in the 80's BC.
>
>By the way, Grolier says of Josephus' writings this, " The evidence
>from the
>historian JOSEPHUS is problematical. He recounts (Antiquities 20.9.1)
>the
>martyrdom of JAMES, "the brother of Jesus called the Christ," in AD
>62. Another
>passage in the Antiquities (18.3.3) gives an extended account of Jesus
>and his
>career, but some features of it are clearly Christian interpolations.
>Whether this
>passage has an authentic nucleus is debated." Now, remember what
>Grolier is
>calling extensive is one paragraph, and I think also only one
>sentence, and even
>they admit that it has been at least mucked with by Christians. And
>Grolier
>missed the point about how late Josephus and the other writers wrote
>all this.
>None of these references were written before 90 AD, and just about all
>of them are
>no more than a passing sentence.
>Helen
>hhiwater@bright.net
>
LIVINGSTON
I think the problem is that you are forced to make too many assumptions
about the source of these quotes. I will grant you that Suetonius and
Pliny do little more than give us information on Christian beliefs,
however I don't think that this is necessarily the case with Josephus and
Tacitus. I don't think that we can just assume that they would have
gotten their data from the Christians. Josephus only lived a couple of
generations after Jesus, but stil within the lifetime of James. I think
it very reasonable to say that he might be an independent source.
However this doesn't even deal with the strongest evidence for Jesus'
existence. Even if Josephus and Tacitus were dependant on the
Christians, who were the Christians dependant on? We have four different
communities of Christians Gnostic, Jewish, Q, and Pauline. For your
hypotheses to hold any water, you must show that all these traditions are
based on a single tradition or person other than Jesus.
For me, instead of hypothesizing all these are part of a big
interconnected conspiracy, the easiest answer is that there was a Jewish
teacher who inadvertently or not founded all these different beliefs. I
ask again, what kind of evidence that would
reasonable to obtain in the ancient world for a person of Jesus alleged
circumstances would lead you to believe that he really did exist?
Sincerely,
Josh Livingston
"A learned man is not learned in all things; but a sufficient
throughout, even to ignorance."
-Montaigne-
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