spin wrote:
Tacitus (Annals 15.44)
There are several problems with the Tacitus passage:
It erroneously calls Pontius Pilate a "procurator" when Tacitus is a major source for the fact that procurators weren't given control of provinces before the time of Claudius.

All this has been discussed. Here is some discussion around this point. It can be found in the pages before and after as well.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/chris ... -4060.html

magikrooster wrote:

spin wrote:
Tacitus (Annals 15.44)
There are several problems with the Tacitus passage:
It erroneously calls Pontius Pilate a "procurator" when Tacitus is a major source for the fact that procurators weren't given control of provinces before the time of Claudius.

All this has been discussed. Here is some discussion around this point. It can be found in the pages before and after as well.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/chris ... -4060.html

If you have followed any of the huge "Real Jesus" thread, then you will see that Spin and most other people here know perfectly well what the arguments are regarding the very brief mention which Tacitus makes about Jesus.

However, here is what E.P. Sanders has to say in his book (1) about where non-Christian writers such as Tacitus obtained their brief information about Jesus -

" Roman sources that mention Jesus are all dependent on Christian reports "

The significance of that is - E.P. Sanders is a well known academic theologian who has written extensively about Jesus, Christianity and Judaism, and who believes that Jesus was real. That above quote comes from his book (ref 1, p49) which is specifically on this subject of Jesus historicity, and which goes to great lengths attempting to show that although all of that early writing about Jesus, both Christian and non-Christian is deeply flawed and shot through with contradictions, mistakes inaccuracies and all manner of problems, nevertheless Sanders still manages to convince himself that Jesus existed ... though he does fully acknowledge how deeply flawed all of that early historical "evidence" is.

But even worse than that (scarcely imaginable, I know), is the fact that we do not actually know what Tacitus ever wrote about Jesus, if indeed he wrote anything about Jesus at all! Because we do not in fact have any original copy of anything Tacitus wrote, and nor do we have any near contemporary copies either. Instead the earliest copy of Tacitus that we have, apparently comes from a whopping one thousand years later! And even that copy was apparently the work of Christian monks!

If anyone thinks that sort of thing is credible evidence of a real Jesus then frankly they must be barking mad very silly indeed LoL .


1. E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, Allen Lane Penguin Press, 1993.

IanS wrote:

If you have followed any of the huge "Real Jesus" thread, then you will see that Spin and most other people here know perfectly well what the arguments are regarding the very brief mention which Tacitus makes about Jesus.

So if only most other people know them then obviously some don't know them, so they can check out previous discussion if they wish

However, here is what E.P. Sanders has to say in his book (1) about where non-Christian writers such as Tacitus obtained their brief information about Jesus -

" Roman sources that mention Jesus are all dependent on Christian reports "

If Tacitus wrote about jesus (and it seems pretty clear he did), the we dont know where he got that information. E.P. Sanders doesn't know where he got his information.
Does E.P. Sanders have any evidence of this? Er....no. So why then, do you ask us to believe it?

magikrooster wrote:

spin wrote:
Tacitus (Annals 15.44)
There are several problems with the Tacitus passage:
It erroneously calls Pontius Pilate a "procurator" when Tacitus is a major source for the fact that procurators weren't given control of provinces before the time of Claudius.

All this has been discussed. Here is some discussion around this point. It can be found in the pages before and after as well.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/chris ... -4060.html

No-one was able to show any reason for doubting Tacitus's evidence that the role of procurator changed with Claudius. Try and find any examples. Read through it all. Consult all the scholars in the field. Do whatever you can to show that Tacitus was wrong in his evidence that procurators gained magisterial powers from Claudius, allowing them to administer provinces. Without magisterial power they could give no legal statements, making them ineligible for government of provinces. It is only when Claudius "lent" them his authority that procurators could govern.

Here's A. 12.60

That same year the emperor was often heard to say that the legal decisions of the procurators ought to have the same force as if pronounced by himself. Lest it might be supposed that he had stumbled inadvertently into this opinion, its principle was also secured by a decree of the Senate on a more complete and ample scale than before. It had indeed already been arranged by the Divine Augustus that the Roman knights who governed Egypt should hear causes, and that their decisions were to be as binding as those of Roman magistrates, and after a time most of the cases formerly tried by the praetors were submitted to the knights. Claudius handed over to them the whole administration of justice for which there had been by sedition or war so many struggles; the Sempronian laws vesting judicial power in the equestrian order, and those of Servilius restoring it to the Senate, while it was for this above everything else that Marius and Sulla fought of old. But those were days of political conflict between classes, and the results of victory were binding on the State. Caius Oppius and Cornelius Balbus were the first who were able, with Caesar's support, to settle conditions of peace and terms of war. To mention after them the Matii, Vedii, and other too influential names of Roman knights would be superfluous, when Claudius, we know, raised freedmen whom he had set over his household to equality with himself and with the laws.

Eodem anno saepius audita vox principis, parem vim rerum habendam a procuratoribus suis iudicatarum, ac si ipse statuisset, ac ne fortuito prolapsus videretur, senatus quoque consulto cautam plenius quam antea et uberius.

Guys, the point that Ian S is making is that we don't know what Tactius actually wrote. We do not know that we have what Tactius actually wrote. We only have copies of copies - not originals - created by several generations of people with known biases and vested interests. This is far from what is regarded as a "primary source" for historians.

magikrooster wrote:

IanS wrote:

If you have followed any of the huge "Real Jesus" thread, then you will see that Spin and most other people here know perfectly well what the arguments are regarding the very brief mention which Tacitus makes about Jesus.

So if only most other people know them then obviously some don't know them, so they can check out previous discussion if they wish

However, here is what E.P. Sanders has to say in his book (1) about where non-Christian writers such as Tacitus obtained their brief information about Jesus -

" Roman sources that mention Jesus are all dependent on Christian reports "

If Tacitus wrote about jesus (and it seems pretty clear he did), the we dont know where he got that information. E.P. Sanders doesn't know where he got his information.
Does E.P. Sanders have any evidence of this? Er....no. So why then, do you ask us to believe it?

I am not " asking you to believe " anything. I am simply telling you that in his book, even Sanders concludes that all Roman sources which mention Jesus, can only be repeating information which came originally from the earlier Christian sources, such as Paul and the earliest Gospels.

The point is that Sanders is a well known Christian academic who does believe in Jesus. You could of course read the same conclusion in the books from well know sceptical writers like G.A. Wells and Alvar Ellegard.

However when you say quote " we don’t know where he (ie Tacitus) got that information ", we in fact know something which is much better than that. Namely - what we do know is that if Tacitus was born in 56AD and if Jesus died some time before 6AD, then Tacitus could not have got his information from his own personal knowledge of witnessing anything Jesus ever said or did ... could he!

That, or their knowledge of Jesus came from the growing Church... You must remember, they were an active force at the time.

I'd say these passing references to a relatively minor figure of the time are about as reliable as any other passing reference to a minor historical figure of the time from any other historian of the time. I don't see any pressing reason to treat these particular references with any greater (or lesser) degree of skepticism.

falconjudge wrote:That, or their knowledge of Jesus came from the growing Church... You must remember, they were an active force at the time.

There is no "or" about it. If it is true that Tacticus actually wrote that bit about Jesus (and it is far from certain that he did) then he got the information from - at the very best - a second-hand source. There are no primary sources for Jesus' life or deeds. None. Zip. Zero. Nil. Nada. Nothing. Information provided by "the growing church" is not first-hand information.

Nicko wrote:

falconjudge wrote:That, or their knowledge of Jesus came from the growing Church... You must remember, they were an active force at the time.

There is no "or" about it. If it is true that Tacticus actually wrote that bit about Jesus (and it is far from certain that he did) then he got the information from - at the very best - a second-hand source. There are no primary sources for Jesus' life or deeds. None. Zip. Zero. Nil. Nada. Nothing. Information provided by "the growing church" is not first-hand information.

And that's why, its perfectly reasonable to hold the opinion that we do not, and can never really know, one way or another.

Unless, some "new" evidence comes to light. Which is, lets face it, unlikely.

It seems to me, irrational to take up such an entrenched position, that it leads one to become a rabid, name calling supporter of any train of thought pertaining to this subject.

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:I'd say these passing references to a relatively minor figure of the time are about as reliable as any other passing reference to a minor historical figure of the time from any other historian of the time. I don't see any pressing reason to treat these particular references with any greater (or lesser) degree of skepticism.

On the contrary, it has been explained scores of times in the long Jesus thread why any honest objective person should be far more sceptical in the case of Jesus. I've given the explanation there myself at least 30 times.

The difference is this -

- Firstly;- in the case on non-religious figures such as the Roman Emperors, the core description of those figures is not one that is characterised entirely in terms of impossible miracles. The sort of things that are recorded about Roman emperors, kings and queens etc,. are essentially normal explicable natural events, such as passing various laws, and sending armies into battles conquering other nations etc. That is the core of the basic historical descriptions for non-religious figures such as the Roman emperors.

And of course, in the case of Roman emperors, all sorts of kings and queens, and even way back to Egyptian Pharaohs, we often have so many physical artefacts, that museums all around the world are stuffed full of that physical evidence of artefacts ... not to mention archaeological sites and original historical Roman, Egyptian, and European historic buildings all over the world as well.

So in the non-religious case, the basic evidence is usually (a)overwhelming and not challenged by anyone, and (b)not claims of anything unbelievable such as constant miracles.

Compare that to the case of Jesus, and also the case of countless other early god-figures, miracle workers, messiahs, and the like, all claimed by ancient religious fanatics to be absolutely witnessed by them as genuine miracles from genuine gods and miracles workers. How many of those hundreds of thousands of miraculous claims were actually true? Do you know?

OK, I'll tell you many of them were true, but first it's essential for you to understand this - 2000 years ago at the time of Jesus, almost everyone in that region, whether they were Christian believers or not, believed that miracles and miracle workers were absolutely literally true and that they were an every day occurrence. So at that time there was no reason for anyone to doubt that a person called Jesus, who none of them had ever seen, may have quite easily been the true miracle worker insisted upon by preachers like Paul, Mathew, Mark, Luke and John etc.

That is what people really believed. They really believed in miracles. They truly thought that was the only possible explanation for why things happened in this world. So there was every reason why they should simply accept the story of people like Jesus as miracle workers, even though none of them had ever seen this person.

But here is the very obvious flaw in the entire Jesus saga - since the advent of modern science, now in the 21st century, most people realise that such stories of miracles are complete and utter nonsense. They are make-believe. They never actually happened.

So the answer to that question of how many such miracle stories are true?, the answer is that none of them were true. Hundreds of thousands of religious people had sworn the stories were absolutely true, and almost everyone believed them without question, but in fact not a single one of those stories was ever true at all. They were all completely mythical.

OK, so that is the first reason why any honest educated person should be sceptical about purely religious stories of impossible miracle workers. Ie the reason is because we now know that such stories are complete nonsense.

The second reason you should be more sceptical in the case of religious claims vs. non-religious claims, is that - to repeat;; the historical basis for non-religious figures, is NOT a fantastic story of the impossible. On the contrary, the basis of stories about Roman emperors etc. is entirely believable as normal commonplace every day events.

Whereas, in stark contrast - the basis of the Jesus story is one entirely characterised in terms of constant miracles being performed. And that story is no longer believable in the 21st century, because modern science has shown us that such stories are completely untrue.

Third reason why the religious stories such as Jesus must be treated with far greater caution, is - other historical figures who are only very poorly evidenced, are not of any relevance or interest to the daily lives of any of the billions of members of the populace on earth. It does not matter one iota to peoples daily lives if say Alexander the Great was real or not. And because it does not matter and has absolutely no consequence at all, it means that ordinary members of worlds population are not going to bother seriously questioning and investigating the detailed claimed history of such poorly evidenced unimportant historical figures ... because it's of absolutely no consequence at all whether such figures were mythical or not.

However, the case of Jesus stands in stark and total contrast to the above irrelevent non-religious historical figures such as Alexander the great, because Jesus has become by far the most important single figure in all human history! And especially for the many millions of Christians whose daily lives are dominated by their Christian faith.

What that means is - Jesus has become so vastly important, that we must now look at the evidence for his existence and his history, in far greater detail and with far more objectivity and care than we would for some other completely inconsequential figure like Alexander the Great (Alex the Great was the example frequently cited here by HJ-believers over the first 200 pages of the Jesus thread).

But when you do begin to look more critically at the claimed evidence of Jesus, it turns out that none of it can be established with any genuine authenticity at all. Absolutely none of it. For 2000 years the Christian Church has attempted to present that evidence as if it was indisputable fact. But the actual truth is that as soon as you begin to ask what that evidence really is and where it really comes from, it all evaporates into vanishingly thin air! The so-called "evidence" is not in fact evidence of Jesus at all.

Instead the whole thing appears to be based purely and entirely on the religious beliefs of the first Christian writers such as Paul and the Gospel authors ... and even those religious preachers never claimed to have ever seen or met Jesus themselves, but instead they were just writing about the faith of their religious beliefs in a figure called "Jesus" - a name which is in fact the English 12th century translation of the actual name which was "Iesous" or "Yehoshua" and which directly means "God"! - so even those preachers ie Paul etc. were not actually giving any evidence, but merely describing their religious beliefs about God!

We could of course go on, because the so-called "evidence" gets even worse than the above (which is scarcely believable, I know!), but very briefly -

- all the writing about Jesus, comes not from any original copies of any gospels, letters, or non-religious historical accounts (eg Josephus or Tacitus), that were thought to have existed anywhere near the century in which Jesus was thought to have lived and died, but instead from either several centuries later, or else even as the first/earliest copies dating actually from a thousand years and more after the death of Jesus!

As "evidence" of Jesus, frankly that sort of copying centuries and even thousands of years after Jesus was said to have died, is utterly worthless, and especially so since the copies appear to be copies of other copies in an endless chain of copying which appears to come mainly if not entirely Christian copying sources anyway!

There is a great deal more, and books from authors like G.A.Wells, Alvar Ellegard, and even Christian believers like E.P, Sanders, are stuffed full of it ... but I'll stop there ... it's waaaaay more than enough allready. .

james1v wrote:

Nicko wrote:

falconjudge wrote:That, or their knowledge of Jesus came from the growing Church... You must remember, they were an active force at the time.

There is no "or" about it. If it is true that Tacticus actually wrote that bit about Jesus (and it is far from certain that he did) then he got the information from - at the very best - a second-hand source. There are no primary sources for Jesus' life or deeds. None. Zip. Zero. Nil. Nada. Nothing. Information provided by "the growing church" is not first-hand information.

And that's why, its perfectly reasonable to hold the opinion that we do not, and can never really know, one way or another.

Unless, some "new" evidence comes to light. Which is, lets face it, unlikely.

It seems to me, irrational to take up such an entrenched position, that it leads one to become a rabid, name calling supporter of any train of thought pertaining to this subject.

Yep. I agree completely with that summary from both of you. And that is exactly my position too.

IOW - for the sake of the Real-Jesus people here - I am not saying, and have never said, that Jesus could not have existed.

He might have existed. Anything might be possible. Anyone might have existed.

The problem is only that what is claimed to be convincing evidence of Jesus, is not merely just not convincing, but in fact it's not even genuinely evidence of a real Jesus at all (as far we can honestly tell, it's simply evidence of hearsay and peoples ancient religious beliefs)

And that's just nowhere near good enough in the case of a figure like Jesus who has become so important in the lives of so many millions of devout believers, and with Christian church constantly attempting to gain influence over the affairs of nations and national governments and their law making processes etc.

Bookmarking.

IanS wrote:

On the contrary, it has been explained scores of times in the long Jesus thread why any honest objective person should be far more sceptical in the case of Jesus. I've given the explanation there myself at least 30 times.

The difference is this -

- Firstly;- in the case on non-religious figures such as the Roman Emperors, the core description of those figures is not one that is characterised entirely in terms of impossible miracles. The sort of things that are recorded about Roman emperors, kings and queens etc,. are essentially normal explicable natural events, such as passing various laws, and sending armies into battles conquering other nations etc. That is the core of the basic historical descriptions for non-religious figures such as the Roman emperors.

That's just bullshit. Many of the figures to whom you're referring were proclaimed as gods and had all sorts of miraculous acts and abilities attributed to them. This "core description" sounds like more bullshit special pleading to me.

And of course, in the case of Roman emperors, all sorts of kings and queens, and even way back to Egyptian Pharaohs, we often have so many physical artefacts, that museums all around the world are stuffed full of that physical evidence of artefacts ... not to mention archaeological sites and original historical Roman, Egyptian, and European historic buildings all over the world as well.

This would be largely irrelevant in the case of a relatively minor figure such as JC. It would be unreasonable to expect to see artifacts left behind from any such figure.

Compare that to the case of Jesus, and also the case of countless other early god-figures, miracle workers, messiahs, and the like, all claimed by ancient religious fanatics to be absolutely witnessed by them as genuine miracles from genuine gods and miracles workers. How many of those hundreds of thousands of miraculous claims were actually true? Do you know?

That's irrelevant. The question isn't one of whether or not the supernatural occurred. The question is whether or not there was an historical person behind the attributions of supernatural events. Just that same as we would when looking at a Roman emperor who was deified by the Senate.

OK, so that is the first reason why any honest educated person should be sceptical about purely religious stories of impossible miracle workers. Ie the reason is because we now know that such stories are complete nonsense.

Skeptical of the content of the stories? Sure. That there was an historical person to whom the stories were attributed? Much less so without a SPECIFIC REASON or a SPECIFIC SET OF EVIDENCE to think that the person was also invented from, for instance, a previously existing set of beliefs or expectations.

The second reason you should be more sceptical in the case of religious claims vs. non-religious claims, is that - to repeat;; the historical basis for non-religious figures, is NOT a fantastic story of the impossible. On the contrary, the basis of stories about Roman emperors etc. is entirely believable as normal commonplace every day events.

Again, your just plain wrong here. The non-religious figures of ancient history have any number of elements of the fantastical mixed in with the mundane. Just as do the religious figures.

You're being arbitrary in your standards. In fact, it's a double standard.

Third reason why the religious stories such as Jesus must be treated with far greater caution, is - other historical figures who are only very poorly evidenced, are not of any relevance or interest to the daily lives of any of the billions of members of the populace on earth.

This is also completely and utterly irrelevant. What an historical figure means to people today has no impact whatsoever on the quality of the evidence we have for that historical figure nor should it affect in any way the standards we hold that evidence to. Current attitudes have no way of retroactively changing the past.

In HJer mythology this is known as the goldilocks principle: Jesus cannot be too significant a figure otherwise you would expect historical evidence for his existence, but he cannot be too insignificant a figure otherwise we would not expect rumors for his existence. Jesus has hit that "just right" sty of being a relatively minor figure, who no-one can show was historical, but who HJers can still fantasize must have been real. This gaming of history with its Just Right Jesus should be seen as the antithesis of skepticism.

Also known as the "life isn't binary" principle. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest. Bon Appétit.

spin wrote:In HJer mythology this is known as the goldilocks principle: Jesus cannot be too significant a figure otherwise you would expect historical evidence for his existence, but he cannot be too insignificant a figure otherwise we would not expect rumors for his existence. Jesus has hit that "just right" sty of being a relatively minor figure, who no-one can show was historical, but who HJers can still fantasize must have been real. This gaming of history with its Just Right Jesus should be seen as the antithesis of skepticism.

The Earth is a planet that just happened to be at the right time and place so that we may eventually exist. And I don't have to fantasize about this at all.

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:

IanS wrote:

On the contrary, it has been explained scores of times in the long Jesus thread why any honest objective person should be far more sceptical in the case of Jesus. I've given the explanation there myself at least 30 times.

The difference is this -

- Firstly;- in the case on non-religious figures such as the Roman Emperors, the core description of those figures is not one that is characterised entirely in terms of impossible miracles. The sort of things that are recorded about Roman emperors, kings and queens etc,. are essentially normal explicable natural events, such as passing various laws, and sending armies into battles conquering other nations etc. That is the core of the basic historical descriptions for non-religious figures such as the Roman emperors.

That's just bullshit. Many of the figures to whom you're referring were proclaimed as gods and had all sorts of miraculous acts and abilities attributed to them. This "core description" sounds like more bullshit special pleading to me.

No, what you say is completely untrue, and by now you really must know that, because that same question has been answered in detail many dozens of times already. But to repeat it again for you, for what must be at least the 50th time -

- Roman emperors and kings and queens were not primarily known as supernatural Gods. They were known primarily as ordinary human rulers of nations. And the things recorded of them in their vast history are 99.9% records of perfectly ordinary non-miraculous everyday commonplace actions ... such as passing various laws, sitting in judgement with their courtiers and governments, and taking their armies into battles with all sorts of other nations.

It’s completely 100% preposterous, daft and entirely dishonest for anyone to deny that. And if they, or you, are silly enough to deny it, then your denial is completely and entirely disproved by the fact that we have museums all around the world stuffed full of actual physical evidence of what those historic rulers did during their reign.

Now compare that with Jesus - first there is no physical evidence, not even one microscopic speck dust, Nothing at all. Big fat ZERO.

Second - in the case of Jesus there is no written so-called “evidence” of anyone at all even mentioning Jesus in his lifetime - all the so-called written “evidence” comes long after Jesus was supposed to have died.

And that written “evidence” turns out not actually to be evidence of a real Jesus at all, but instead merely evidence of what people who never met Jesus, later said about the stories that had previously been circulated about Jesus by the earliest Christian sources.

The later non-biblical writers such as Tacitus and Josephus cannot possibly be evidence for a real Jesus, since as has been explained to you 50 times, amongst other fatal problems, those authors were not even born until after Jesus was supposed to have died.

That only leaves the religious accounts. But they are not evidence either, since by their own admission neither Paul nor any of the canonical gospel authors ever met Jesus at all.

All of that has been patiently explained to you, in extensive detail, dozens of times before.

So in the case of Jesus that amounts to absolutely no genuine evidence at all

Whereas in the case of the Roman emperors, who you are trying to claim were also supernatural miraculous figures like Jesus, the plain indisputable fact is that we have incontestable mountains of evidence showing those people were real individuals, inc. many thousands of huge museums and archaeological sites all around the world stuffed full not merely of debatable ancient written accounts, but actually mountains of real physical hard evidence ... and nobody on Earth disputes any of that. Nobody.

So the comparison with Jesus could not be more different if you tried. And to try comparing Jesus to Roman emperors claiming the Roman emperors were known only to be supernatural gods, is frankly 100% disingenuous nonsense which should not be entertained any further in these threads.

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:

And of course, in the case of Roman emperors, all sorts of kings and queens, and even way back to Egyptian Pharaohs, we often have so many physical artefacts, that museums all around the world are stuffed full of that physical evidence of artefacts ... not to mention archaeological sites and original historical Roman, Egyptian, and European historic buildings all over the world as well.

This would be largely irrelevant in the case of a relatively minor figure such as JC. It would be unreasonable to expect to see artifacts left behind from any such figure..

That is not the point. The point is - we do have that absolute mass of incontestable evidence for most Roman rulers. So they are not in doubt in the same way as Jesus at all ... For whom we have no genuine evidence whatsoever. See the above.

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:

Compare that to the case of Jesus, and also the case of countless other early god-figures, miracle workers, messiahs, and the like, all claimed by ancient religious fanatics to be absolutely witnessed by them as genuine miracles from genuine gods and miracles workers. How many of those hundreds of thousands of miraculous claims were actually true? Do you know?

That's irrelevant. The question isn't one of whether or not the supernatural occurred. The question is whether or not there was an historical person behind the attributions of supernatural events. Just that same as we would when looking at a Roman emperor who was deified by the Senate.

No. I'm afraid the supernatural claims are very important here. Because the entire basis of the Christian gospel story of Jesus , was and is, that he is a figure who was a constant miracle worker, and who is in fact THE supernatural Lord God himself in some sort of vaguely defined alternative form.

The so called "history" of Jesus, is the history of a miracle worker, and it’s based entirely upon claims of his constant miracles.

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:

OK, so that is the first reason why any honest educated person should be sceptical about purely religious stories of impossible miracle workers. Ie the reason is because we now know that such stories are complete nonsense.

Skeptical of the content of the stories? Sure. That there was an historical person to whom the stories were attributed? Much less so without a SPECIFIC REASON or a SPECIFIC SET OF EVIDENCE to think that the person was also invented from, for instance, a previously existing set of beliefs or expectations.

There's masses of evidence to show why any honest person should be sceptical. I've described it to you in detail dozens of times in the long Jesus thread. How many times do you need to be told?

The reasons inc. the fact that since long before Jesus, and right up to the present day, religious people have always untruthfully claimed to have witnessed miracles and miracle workers. There are literally millions of such claims. And 2000 years ago people believed that such claims were true. They believed miracles happened every day.

But now in the 21st century, we know from modern science that all those miracle claims are completely untrue. They are utter nonsense and complete make-believe.

There is in fact (apparently) no genuine evidence of a real Jesus at all. Not in sources like Josephus or Tacitus. And certainly not in the writing of people like Paul and the Gospel authors who are describing a physically impossible miracle worker, who they themselves say they never met, never saw or ever heard in any way at all.

I'll leave the other 500 pages of obvious and clear evidence against Jesus ... if you want to read that then pay for a decent book from Ellegard or Wells and read it for yourself.

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:

The second reason you should be more sceptical in the case of religious claims vs. non-religious claims, is that - to repeat;; the historical basis for non-religious figures, is NOT a fantastic story of the impossible. On the contrary, the basis of stories about Roman emperors etc. is entirely believable as normal commonplace every day events.

Again, your just plain wrong here. The non-religious figures of ancient history have any number of elements of the fantastical mixed in with the mundane. Just as do the religious figures.

You're being arbitrary in your standards. In fact, it's a double standard.

That has been explained to you above, as well as explained to you 50 times before in the long Jesus thread. So please read all that again to see why your complaint has no validity.

Look - the fact that some Roman emperors tried to claim they had the status of Gods and would have a special place in heaven, is in no way a claim that anyone at the time thought those people existed only as supernatural miracle workers. And even if anyone did ever think that, then that view is completely destroyed by the indisputable fact that we have museums literally stuffed full of evidence which shows those Roman rulers definitely did exist as real people ...

... contrast that with Jesus, for whom there is absolutely no such evidence. Not even one microscopic spec of it.

TheOneTrueZeke wrote:

Third reason why the religious stories such as Jesus must be treated with far greater caution, is - other historical figures who are only very poorly evidenced, are not of any relevance or interest to the daily lives of any of the billions of members of the populace on earth.

This is also completely and utterly irrelevant. What an historical figure means to people today has no impact whatsoever on the quality of the evidence we have for that historical figure nor should it affect in any way the standards we hold that evidence to. Current attitudes have no way of retroactively changing the past.

The impact and the relevance is perfectly obvious. I’ll explain it again for you (for the 28th time) - we do not bother to investigate other poorly evidenced figures, such as say Robin Hood, because those figures are of absolutely no interest to anyone today ... if you started a thread claiming Robin Hood was a real figure then you would not get many people bothering to reply, because Robin Hood is of absolutely no interest to anyone!

But the Jesus case is entirely different. Because the claims that Christian religion has made for Jesus, have made Jesus into the most important single figure in all human history ... he is the basis of theistic belief for millions of devout Christians who support and pay for the organised religion of Christianity, which directly attempts every day to exercise power & influence over national governments and over the national and international laws under which the people of all nations live. None of that is true for figure like Robin Hood or Alexander the Great is it! ... No, it is not! ... they have absolutely Zero influence on anyone ... but the influence of the Jesus stories and the resulting Christian organised religion is of absolutely vast influence on everyone on earth ...

... that’s the difference ... that’s why we are taking a much closer look at Jesus. That's why we are absolutely right to take that much more critical close look at Jesus.

Random Skeptic wrote:

spin wrote:In HJer mythology this is known as the goldilocks principle: Jesus cannot be too significant a figure otherwise you would expect historical evidence for his existence, but he cannot be too insignificant a figure otherwise we would not expect rumors for his existence. Jesus has hit that "just right" sty of being a relatively minor figure, who no-one can show was historical, but who HJers can still fantasize must have been real. This gaming of history with its Just Right Jesus should be seen as the antithesis of skepticism.

The Earth is a planet that just happened to be at the right time and place so that we may eventually exist. And I don't have to fantasize about this at all.

So you know where the term "Goldilocks principle" comes from. That's something.

Zeke (and any other HJ-believers here) - look, cut the crap and the trotting around and around in the same endless decreasing circles, the bottom line is this -

- Do you have any genuine evidence to show Jesus was real? Yes or No?

Do NOT bring up stuff like Josephus and Tacitus for the 100th time, because that cannot possibly be evidence for reasons that it’s physically 100% impossible.


Where is the genuine evidence of Jesus?

Where is it?

Produce it?

Stop pissing about, and produce the EVIDENCE.

There is nothing else left to talk about … you must now produce the evidence, and make it genuine evidence to show Jesus was real (not some total pile of childish poo).