Internet Revisionists Beware: Real Facts Being Released to Public!

HIEROCLES: AD 284-305
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A quote by Eusebius preserves some of the text of this lost work of Hierocles, Philalethes or Lover of Truth. In this quote, Hierocles condemns Peter and Paul as sorcerers. Again, their miracles could not be denied, rather they claimed that they used sorcery.
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"And this point is also worth noticing, that whereas the tales of Jesus have been vamped up by Peter and Paul and a few others of the kind,--men who were liars and devoid of education and wizards."
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Eusebius, The Treatise of Eusebius, ch. 2.
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ANTONIUS PIUS: 86 AD to 161 AD​

A letter from the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius to the general assembly in Asia Minor. This letter says that the officials in Aisa Minor were getting upset at the Christians in their province, and that no changes are to be made in Antoninus' method of dealing with them.​

"The Emperor Caesar Titus AElius Adrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, Supreme Pontiff, in the fifteenth year of his tribuneship, Consul for the third time, Father of the fatherland, to the Common Assembly of Asia, greeting: I should have thought that the gods themselves would see to it that such offenders should not escape. For if they had the power, they themselves would much rather punish those who refuse to worship them; but it is you who bring trouble on these persons, and accuse as the opinion of atheists that which they hold, and lay to their charge certain other things which we are unable to prove. But it would be advantageous to them that they should be thought to die for that of which they are accused, and they conquer you by being lavish of their lives rather than yield that obedience which you require of them. And regarding the earthquakes which have already happened and are now occurring, it is not seemly that you remind us of them, losing heart whenever they occur, and thus set your conduct in contrast with that of these men; for they have much greater confidence towards God than you yourselves have. And you, indeed, seem at such times to ignore the gods, and you neglect the temples, and make no recognition of the worship of God. And hence you are jealous of those who do serve Him, and persecute them to the death. Concerning such persons, some others also of the governors of provinces wrote to my most divine father; to whom he replied that they should not at all disturb such persons, unless they were found to be attempting anything against the Roman government. And to myself many have sent intimations regarding such persons, to whom I also replied in pursuance of my father's judgment. But if any one has a matter to bring against any person of this class, merely as such a person, let the accused be acquitted of the charge, even though he should be found to be such an one; but let the accuser he amenable to justice."​

Justin Martyr, The First Apology, ch. 70.​

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First of all, the Josephus quote (the first one) is debated as a forgery.

Secondly, all these names and quotes prove what?

Thirdly, you Christians think that if you can prove that your holy book is accurate in 3 out of 4 ways, it automatically leads to the "logical" conclusion that Sky Daddy, angels, demons and the boogeyman all exist in their collective little spirit worlds and they we are all supposed to buy this shit--just because you found some artifact or some secular historian acknowledged your book. Please.

 

What exactly is it that you're trying to proove? That the testimony of some historians verifies the truth of Christianity? I don't see the relation at all... during that time period and even right up until today, people attest to miracles occuring, to great healers and so forth, and it means nothing. People are gullible, especially when they know no better. Even the Bible attests to this, one example being Acts 28:6, as well as Acts 14:8-18, where Paul was thought to be a god, the first time because he survived a snakebite, the second time because a man with bad feet stood up. People want to believe in miracles, and they suspend better judgement to make room much the same way you'd argue that disbelievers do when they counter with conspiracy theories, which consequently have just as much evidence and support as did the life of Jesus.

I mean, by the standard you've set forth, we should all be worshiping Apollonius of Tyana, who also existed during the same time as Christ, who also claimed to be the son of God, who also performed countless miracles (far more than Jesus, for that matter, and more documented), who also spoke against the establishment in much the same way as Christ, who also died and was resurrected, and who most of those same scholars you pointed out also "verified." So powerful was Apollonius that the Catholic Church used his "talismans" themselves up until the sixth century, even though they condemned his powers as demonic. Miracle workers in that day and age were a dime a dozen.

 

RE: One thing to keep in mind here: Any given piece of evidence is up for debate and not necessarily every individual peice of evidence is 'in itself' substantial.
That is not how it needs to be either. (contrary to what you will no doubt see).
Remember, in any courtroom in any fair country throughout all our history the best we ask for is 'Evidence beyond a reasonable doubt'.
Re-read that if you want.
Evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Fair enough.

Hey.

Can you Christians therefore practice what you preach and stop using finding a building where Derek 12:19 said it was or whatever (e.g. some utterly minor detail in the Bible that has no relevance to bigger issues like that whole Heaven/Hell thing) as proof that your whole supernatural guy on a big white throne trip is true?

Just a thought

kthxbye

 

The above is called the Testamonium Flavium and Libertine was being kind when he said that it's "debated as a forgery".

The truth is no reputable scholars, christian or otherwise, accept the TF as legitamate anymore (allthough I have noticed that even informed apologists will still try to pass it off as legit when they're speaking to a lay audience).

None of the ancient apologists--Ireanius, Justin, Origin, etc.-- makes any mention of the Testamonium Flavium until Esubius does sometime late in the fourth cent. C.E.
The TF is alledgedly taken from Josephus' History of the Jewish War which was written in 98 C.E.
All of the early church fathers were educated men and would have undoubtedly been intimately familiar with Josephus and his work yet none of them--even Origin who quotes Josephus at length in his argument against Celcus--seems to be aware of this passage.

Esubius is infamous for fabricating and intentionally misinterpreting text(there are documents by his contemporaries within the church complaining about Esubious misquoting and misinterpreting their own correspondence with him).

Th TF doesn't fit the text around it. It seems to have been dropped into the text between the preceeding paragragh and the following paragraph like a magazine ad dropped between the pages of an article.

There's more but there are any number of links dealing with this that anyone who's interested could check out.

The only value I see in the TF is that it serves as a red flag for anyone who's trying to educate themselves about christianity.

If I see someone using it I know that this person is either misinformed or niave, or he's hoping his audience is, so why bother reading whatever else he has to say?

 

Further, Origen does state that Josephus did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, a direct contradiction to the passage.

Jerome also used the Testamonium Flavium as an argument around the same time as Eusebius, I can't remember when, but his latin translation renders the questionable line in much the same way, using terms(s) Josephus would never have used. The whole passage is pro-Christian, and Josephus (as a Pharasaic Jew), was not a Christian.

 

Thats awesome.. and in fact, you can find even more critisisms of each individual Author and a few of them are even considered to be suspicious in there intentions.
But as 'Prosecutors' you seem to be doing your job here.
You most definately can call some degree of 'doubt' on any individual piece of evidence.

You need to understand something (and I made this point beforehand).
Its not necessary to establish that each or every Author is giving an accurate testimony in order to gain valuable information from them.

What can I give as an example might be.. lets get back to our standards of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Lets say we have some eyewitnesses and one of them states he was at the Docks that day and he testifies that Mr.Pink did NOT pull the trigger.
Another Witness claims Mr.Pink told him he jumped in front of the bullet.
Another says that is nonsense and he saw Mr.Pink riding into the Docks on the QE2 and fired that bullet out of his arse.

A Prosecutor is rightfully able to cast all kinds of doubt on any one of those testimonies.
Actually all three could be found highly questionable.
In fact, 'someone' is lying here because they cant all be true.

But...

Did you notice that DID establish at least one very important testimony?
Regardless of anything else - it puts Mr.Pink on the Docks that day.
Not only does Mr.Pink say he was at the Docks - but everyone else does too, regardless of what comes next.

Im getting ready for work here so Im putting that out there as a quick and basic analogy to make the important point.
These historical testimonies are, if nothing else, establishing over and over that there most certainly were Disciples of Christ running about with their Gospels and treating Jesus like he was God.

But hey.. NaykidApe would rather point out there appears to be a commentary dropped in Josephus history and 'therefore' you should then dismiss anything and eveything else.
Stupid.
Once again, there may be an interjection in Josephus but that does not change the fact that Josephus sure as hell seems to believe there is a whole bunch of people running around worshipping Jesus.
Clearly, everybody from friends to enemies and even liars and those with bad eyesight or shaking testimony seem to think Mr.Pink was at the Docks.
Thats what we aim to establish here.

 

I don't think anybody in here needs a psychology lesson Erasmus.

And if they did I'd say you'd be better qualified as a subject than as the instructor.

Since you missed the point I'll sum it up for you;

If you catch someone presenting faulty evidence at the begining, why read any further.
Either that person is misinformed or a liar.
Either way why waste time sorting through someone else's misconceptions or lies when there are plenty of honest, informed people dealing with the same subject matter.

Like I said the Testamonium Flavium is a red flag. I see someone trying to present it as fact and the only conclusions I can come to are either this persons stupid or he's hoping I am.

 

Thanks Erasmus70, I found your resources and references enlightening.

 

Erasmus70's collection of quotes reminds me of Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" (vol 1 & 2) and the later "He Walked Among Us". As for making the point of an historical focus for the New Testament documents, and extra-biblical sources, it seems fine. The "red flag"? Well, in his earlier work Josh M quotes the TF in that form as "hotly contested" but in that later work devotes a lot of space to illustrating the arguments for and against the TF, and suggests that it may have been "doctored" (by a later writer) rather than being a "forgery" - the original may have been a much more basic statement but still there, refering to Jesus and his crucifixion.

 

*edit*

 

There seems to be a nearly Universal agreement that this particular passage is not a 'forgery' and I dont even think that was ever considered seriously.
The agreement more or less met that this was a 'Interpolation' but basically what you are reading is Josephus being written by a Christian Scribe - who then adds some comments or study notes or something along the lines of how modern Muslims will say 'Peace be upon him'.
In other words - there 'would' be (Brackets) but since they did not use () they just appear as all part of the same paragraph.

However.. there is even more going on since I was in school and now Im reading:
In 1995 a discovery was published that brought important new evidence to the debate over the Testimonium Flavianum.
For the first time it was pointed out that Josephus' description of Jesus showed an unusual similarity with another early description of Jesus.
It was established statistically that the similarity was too close to have appeared by chance.
Further study showed that Josephus' description was not derived from this other text, but rather that both were based on a Jewish-Christian "gospel" that has since been lost.

All of which can be read about in a rather well researched AOL Hompage (wow.. surprise!) here:
http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS/testimonium.htm

Anyways...
Naykidape - you are totally excused now for simply self-imploding with a great fizzle on this.
The only way you have a 'Red Flag' would be if I intended to show that all these authors spoke Gospel and each historical account is inerrant.
However...
I CLEARLY explained to you up front that was NOT the intention and further more I specifically warned you that there are controversies and critisisms that could be made about each individual author.
Even if that wasnt the case - what kind of moron throws out every other historical account about Jesus because something was wrong with ONE of them.
Like they were all buddies that worked for the same company or something lol?
Stupid.

Anyways.. what really says it all is that you were just delighted to go around here making posts about how there was really no historical evidence that Christianity is what Constantine and Paul made it look like and blah blah this and stories talking 'as if' there was no sort of historical way to know anyways.
Well Crap in a Hat .. looks like there is ALL KINDS of well known evidence that Christians were up to that business long before your Conspiracy theory takes off.

And this is the point here - not that Pliny the Younger is some great and trustworthy historian or that he was even very accurate either.
The point is that Pliny sure as heck seems to think there are some people called Christians who are worshipping Jesus as if Jesus was a God.
THAT is what the historical evidence is doing here.

When you get enough of these.. and sometimes they are accountable or crosscheckable against other sources - to the point where its far beyond a reasonable doubt that James, Jesus, Paul and Christians had to have been existing and (in their minds) certainly believe Jesus was divine.
It becomes beyond any reason to even begin to believe that Constantine 'came up with it' and then astonishingly 'planted' all these documents while somehow disposing of all the others.

Christianity was well on the way and established much much earlier than 350 AD and clearly they held beliefs similar to what we know were present at the Nicene Counil long before it convened.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

 

Maybe in your universe Erasmus. The rest of us have to deal with this one, and current scholarly concensus on this plane is that the TF is BS.

Yes I'm aware of this theory, but "the agreement met"? Among who? Whoever they are they must have a strong aversion to writing books or posting on the internet.

Wow! I do believe this is the very first time you've ever actually provided a link to back up your claims. I'll check it out and let you know what I think (see how that works?).

When did that happen? If you're talking about my last post that just says "edit", that's the result of my having answered rexys post,
going back and double checking what I'd said,
realising I wasn't entirely sure about what I'd posted,
and deciding to eliminate it until I'd looked into it more thouroghly.

This is called scholastic integrity
(don't worry, I don't think you're quite ready for that one yet)

It's still an indication that your criteria is sloppy. Sorry, it's just a fact.

Beats me. What gave you the impression that that's what I was doing?

I was merely using your presentation of the TF to illustrate your gullibility.

Do you think you or your source have a monopoly on the rest of the information you presented? that's a bit arrogant don't you think?


FYI I happen to lean towards accepting the other Josephus quote (I've said as much, more than once in this forum). For that matter I'm pretty firmly convinced JC existed (and this has been my stance consistantly through out my posts in here).

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here but--I said what when?
Could you be specific?
When did I mention Constantine? (note: Go and grab a quote by me if you think you can find one. Don't just pull something out of your ass).

Up to what business? You lost me.

Didn't quite get what you're saying here either. Are you accusing me of having denyed that there were christians in Pliny's time?

You mean "beyond a comfortable doubt".

 

I was not commenting on your "Edit".
I was commenting on your non-sequitor about the Josephus Interpolation changing anything, not to mention that I clearly stated up front that it was beside the point.

Im not going to bother going through previous threads to find out where you beaked off in agreement with the 'Pauline Christian' wedge and Nicene Mafia theories being bandied about.
If you are disassociating yourself from that then cheers to that.

Will try and pop on tomorrow with some more historical evidence that the Gospels are trustworthy in terms of being real accounts of real people, places and events and very very unlikely to have been 'fabricated'.
Remember.. im not arguing for Divinity here.. Im arguing that these people certainly believed what they wrote was real and that their records are their records.

More later..

 

I don't think that anybody's going to argue with you that some historians wrote that Christians existed at the time of Jesus. It's not that some of those historians you've listed don't verify anything, it's that all of them don't. The vast majority of them are Christian, for one thing, and can't be trusted. The non-Christian sources don't independently verify anything, not that Jesus existed, that He was crucified, that an eclipse occurred, that Jesus was resurrected 3 days after his death, that Jesus considered Himself the son of God; all they verify is that Christians thought He did.

 

Erasmus, always trying to discredit peoples intellect when they prove you wrong.

Get a life "Oh Great Scholar of Copy and Paste"

Libertine and Ape, thanks for handling this guy so well. He always attacks me in the Pagan forums, and pulls all this Christian hoopla out. I am not a Christian scholar, I see little reason to waste my time on it, but I know a little of what you all were talking about.

Erasmus accuses me of reading false reports and being gullible, but Ape, you backed it all up in a quite scholastic way.

Thanks brother.

 

Josephus wasn't Christian. He was Jewish

 

That's because the evidence isn't in any of my previous threads, it's right where it came from to begin with--in your head.

you're right though; if you had to go through all the trouble of actually substantiating you're accusations you couldn't make as many and what fun would that be?

So tell me Erasmus, when you say you have dreams of riding through Europe on a donkey, wearing a black robe with a copy of a book called "The Devils Hammer" under your arm, are you talking about actual dreams you have while asleep, or are you talking about "dreams" in the sense that these are your goals for the future?

 

Lol, thanks man.

I'm still trying to figure out what this Erasmus guy is. Half the time I think he's one of these people who comes into the christianity forum pretending to be a christian in order to make christians in general look bad.

If that's what he's up to then he's a genius.