I don't have a strong opinion on the matter. Skimming the article represents the best information I've received on the subject to date.
Cool. I’d recommend that you do some more research if you are interested.
How is that a relevant question?
it would tell me how familiar you are with the claims in question.
And that's bad too.
Usually when I see the word "since" it is a premise indicator, meaning that somewhere nearby in the argument this point has been established, but that's not the case here. Why is that?
Well, lorax, can you show me contemporary evidence for JC? If you can’t, then the point has been established. Christians have been trying to find this evidence for centuries and they have nothing.
Okay, so your argument here relies on another argument from another thread.
Here's what I'm confused about: It seems that you are not only resting your major premise, but your entire argument on content from a previous thread. What does this thread contribute to the argument?
Yes, the information has been presented on another thread. That doesn’t invalidate it does it? This thread was started with a question on attempts to “harmonize” the various conflicting claims in the gospels by Christians attempting to use Roman history and retconning their myth to fit this history. There have been many books and websites about the problems with claiming that Jesus Christ actually existed, from wiki article compilations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus to critiques of Christian books claiming that JC existed:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/historicity.html http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/christianity/craig.html Books on how the bible is not to be trusted:
http://www.bartdehrman.com/ These should give you a good start on the debate and the facts presented.
I can't say there is, no
Okay, for someone who seems to think that my claims are wrong, you seem rather disinterested in any information to correct that impression.
Is there also no record of Pilate? What head of a roman province is supposed by the bible who is not in evidence?
Hatter is right. There is the Pilate Stone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilate_Stone However, using this as evidence for the existence of a man/god is rather like saying that since New York City is mentioned in a Spiderman comic book, that means that Spidey exists. The Illiad mentions people and places that exist, does that mean that Athena and Zeus do also?
That question is confusing to me. Do I think a roman would have noticed a legion? or would have noticed a crowd of peasants? I suppose most Romans would notice either with the former obviously much more likely to be recorded historically.
I am asking if you think that the occupying Romans would have noticed a gathering of thousands of people just outside of Jerusalem, in a province that had been racked with rebellion. The term “zealot” comes from this period, when there were Jews who were intent on getting rid of the Roman occupation and seemed ot have used terroristic methods.
What percent of all roman historical records that were written to we still have?
Hard to tell since we don’t know how much there was in the first place. Could there still be records found that say “Hey, we saw JC doing miracles and when we killed him there were dead people walking the streets”? Sure but Christians have been looking for 2000+ years now. With such dramatic and ostensibly wide spread phenomena, why nothing? No contemporary culture in the area the eastern Mediterreanan reports the events that the bible claims as true. No darkening of the sun or earthquake at the cruxifiction, no gatherings of thousands of people, no miracles noted, no exodus from Egypt, no flood, etc.
BTW, here’s a good site for dates and other info on early Christian writings:
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/