Posted: Feb 27, 2010 8:02 am
TimONeill wrote:Understood. But the so-called "importance" of an ancient figure to someone today makes no difference to whether or not there is sufficient reason to accept they exist. There is sufficient evidence for historians to accept that Theudas, the Egyptian, the Samaritan Prophet and several others exist.
You assert that historians accept these characters existed; I have no idea whether this is actually true. I don't much care, either. If the evidence for their existence is as scant as the evidence for Jesus, then personally I'm pretty happy to take the same stance with them as I am for Jesus, YHWH, or any other figure for whom evidence is, shall we say, sub-optimal. Said stance is that I see no reason to believe you when you say they exist(ed) given the evidence you've provided, but I'll be happy to re-evaluate if you're able to provide something more.
Given that there is even better evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus existed, they accept the existence of him as well.
As far as I'm aware, some do and some don't. You seem to have a habit of asserting absolutes where none exist - I'd get that checked, if I were you.
So the internet amateurs who disagree with the scholarly consensus have to explain why we should not accept that any of these people exist.
No, they only have to explain why they don't accept. I've already given my reasons above.
The fact that they don't like modern Christianity or they have some teenaged resentment of their Christian parents isn't enough. Can you present some rational reasons to doubt the existence of any of these people?
Geez, man. Talk about poisoning the well.
Let's start with Theudas.
Let's not.
Anyway, I'm supposed to be finishing up a grant application. I may or may not participate here further, depending on the extent of my writer's block.
Peace.
