|  New Posts
 
ReasonableFaith.org > Forums > Christian Particularism > Historians' Prospective
 
 


Reply
 
Author Comment
 
chaowdur
Posted 01/23/12 at 10:41 AMReply with quote #1 
Could somebody give their critique of this..  http://nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
"

Christians love to bring up the names of Josephus Flavius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius and others as testimonies to Jesus’ life, however, they couldn't have been eye-witnesses to him simply because they didn't live in his calculated supposed lifetime.

How about historians who ~did~ live in that time? “Take, for example, the works of Philo Judaeus who's birth occurred in 20 B.C.E. and died 50 C.E. He lived as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the area of Jerusalem during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the surrounding area. Yet not once, in all of his volumes of writings, do we read a single account of a Jesus "the Christ." Nor do we find any mention of Jesus in Seneca's (4? B.C.E. - 65 C.E.) writings, nor from the historian Pliny the Elder (23? - 79 C.E.)."

Sonick92
Posted 01/26/12 at 02:16 AMReply with quote #2 
http://www.tektonics.org/qt/remslist.html

According to this article, there's a couple things wrong.

1.) It's debated that he lived past Jesus's death.
2.) He wasn't Hellenistic.
3.) He had family in Jerusalem, but did not live there.

This is according to tekton, so i guess you should take these both of the sources as skeptical. I suppose you'll have to go right to the scholars themselves for clarification because 1 of these sites have to be wrong.
emailestthoume
Posted 01/27/12 at 02:00 AMReply with quote #3 
Quote:
Originally Posted by chaowdur
Could somebody give their critique of this..  http://nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
"

Christians love to bring up the names of Josephus Flavius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius and others as testimonies to Jesus’ life, however, they couldn't have been eye-witnesses to him simply because they didn't live in his calculated supposed lifetime.

How about historians who ~did~ live in that time? “Take, for example, the works of Philo Judaeus who's birth occurred in 20 B.C.E. and died 50 C.E. He lived as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the area of Jerusalem during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the surrounding area. Yet not once, in all of his volumes of writings, do we read a single account of a Jesus "the Christ." Nor do we find any mention of Jesus in Seneca's (4? B.C.E. - 65 C.E.) writings, nor from the historian Pliny the Elder (23? - 79 C.E.)."


I didn't read the article as it was like 50 pages and I don't have the time, but I don't think it matters that you don't have historians writing that were eyewitnesses to Jesus (though you do have Paul who everyone dates at least some of his letters around 49 A.D. as well as some of the gospel material that goes back early) as the people you mentioned were highly respected historians. We trust reliable historians writing hundreds of years after events, and, for example Josephus, was much closer to Jesus' time. Why Philo or the others didn't mention Jesus, I don't know specifically. It's not like Jesus was an emperor. He is pretty famous now, but back then he was probably seen as not much more than another failed messiah by many after his death. But as I said the list you gave in the first paragraph of historians who mentioned Jesus was a long list of reliable names which is, as for the discipline of history, is far more than enough to conclude some things about Jesus. (such as that he existed and was crucified)
Previous Topic | Next Topic
Print
Reply

Quick Navigation:



Important: The Reasonable Faith forums have moved to: www.reasonablefaith.org/forums/






Powered by Website Toolbox - Create a Website Forum Hosting, Guestbook Hosting, or Website Chat Room for your website.