The Anatomical And Physiological Details Of Death By Crucifixion:

[Owlswing]

Just to check what sense you are using 'attested' in. They cannot be hearing witness to it as they weren't born and it isn't clear in either passage that they have checked the statements beyond talking to Christians.

One can attest/hear witness to something without having been alive at the time, NS.  My father, born in 1922, suffered a hernia whilst working as a porter in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford during the 2ndWW, something that my siblings and I used to (rather callously, looking back) get him to recount rather too often.  Apart from a picture of him in his uniform taken by a friend and a verbal record from the person who became my godfather when I was born, I doubt whether there is much other easily available evidence to this effect (though if I was to burrow through wartime records for the hospital, I'd probably find something).

As for whether or not thay had checked the statements beyond talking to Christians, there is no evidence in either passage that they spoke to any Christians.  In view of the attitude of society to Christians at the time (that they were of no consequence and potentially 'outlaws' - in the sense that they broke Imperial laws in  refusing to worship the Emperor), is it likely that Tacitus or Josephus [the latter a Jew] would have spoken to them

Tacitus was not born until 56CE, twenty-five years after the death of Christ, and except for his service in the army lived in Rome, so the likelyhood of him having ever met anyone who met Christ is remote.

Josephus wrote about early Christianity in 94CE and had lived in Rome since 67CE and never mentioned having met Christ or anyone who had.

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[Hope]

There is not, so far as can be ascertained, a single word about Jesus that was written at the time he was supposed to be doing the things attributed to him and the sooner Christians wake up to  that fact and accept that their religion is as much based on faith and not fact as any other religiuous belief the quicker they will stop being the arrogant "we are the only ones who are right and the rest of you are going to Hell" bunch that they are now.

Sorry Matt but, like so many, you write (note the action described in that verb) from a literary tradition aspect, forgetting that whilst a lot of the 1st Century Roman Empire required literacy to survive, many of its inhabitants weren't literate.  Instead they relied on oral tradition which had a very defined way of ensuring the accuracy of what it transmitted.  In fact, I suspect that more change took place to historical records in the early days of the written word and everything relied on scribes than it did through oral transmission.  Even if that is over-pessimistic, I doubt whether the early days of literacy had a better track-record than orality.

[Owlswing]

Just to check what sense you are using 'attested' in. They cannot be hearing witness to it as they weren't born and it isn't clear in either passage that they have checked the statements beyond talking to Christians.

One can attest/hear witness to something without having been alive at the time, NS.  My father, born in 1922, suffered a hernia whilst working as a porter in the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford during the 2ndWW, something that my siblings and I used to (rather callously, looking back) get him to recount rather too often.  Apart from a picture of him in his uniform taken by a friend and a verbal record from the person who became my godfather when I was born, I doubt whether there is much other easily available evidence to this effect (though if I was to burrow through wartime records for the hospital, I'd probably find something).

As for whether or not thay had checked the statements beyond talking to Christians, there is no evidence in either passage that they spoke to any Christians.  In view of the attitude of society to Christians at the time (that they were of no consequence and potentially 'outlaws' - in the sense that they broke Imperial laws in  refusing to worship the Emperor), is it likely that Tacitus or Josephus [the latter a Jew] would have spoken to them

Disagree on attest - you can report the story but you cannot really attest to the event. Attest has a specific meaning and wouldn't really be used of an historian. Note I don't think that calls into doubt Tacitus or has any promoting the idea of mythicism with which I have little truck.


Interesting point on Tacitus, in particular, I don't think it applies quite so much to Josephus because he was a Jew (I think that makes him more likely to have talked to Christians). Also in Josephus' case leaving aside any parts that may be a forgery is a more positive portrayal of Christians. The problem with Tacitus is I'm not sure the word messiah would make sense unless he had talked to Christians - it's not something that would make sense in teh Roman world. The only other question, I have about the accuracy, leaving aside the really abstruse stuff,   is the idea of there being multitudes of them in Rome at the time of Nero but that may in a sense not mean quite the same as we might think of it and has more of a meaning of a noticeable number rather than a huge number.

Messiah would have probably been used in the sense that the Jews named the Messiah as being their saviour and to this day do not acknowledge that Jesus was THE messiah.

[Owlswing]

There is not, so far as can be ascertained, a single word about Jesus that was written at the time he was supposed to be doing the things attributed to him and the sooner Christians wake up to  that fact and accept that their religion is as much based on faith and not fact as any other religiuous belief the quicker they will stop being the arrogant "we are the only ones who are right and the rest of you are going to Hell" bunch that they are now.

Sorry Matt but, like so many, you write (note the action described in that verb) from a literary tradition aspect, forgetting that whilst a lot of the 1st Century Roman Empire required literacy to survive, many of its inhabitants weren't literate.  Instead they relied on oral tradition which had a very defined way of ensuring the accuracy of what it transmitted.  In fact, I suspect that more change took place to historical records in the early days of the written word and everything relied on scribes than it did through oral transmission.  Even if that is over-pessimistic, I doubt whether the early days of literacy had a better track-record than orality.

Tacitus and Josephus whom you are climing as proof of the Jesus story's truth WERE literate!

[Hope]

Tacitus was not born until 56CE, twenty-five years after the death of Christ, and except for his service in the army lived in Rome, so the likelyhood of him having ever met anyone who met Christ is remote.

Josephus wrote about early Christianity in 94CE and had lived in Rome since 67CE and never mentioned having met Christ or anyone who had.

Thanks for that, Matt.  So, are you suggesting that they both got their information from the Roman authorities, rather than from any Christians - though it is likely that Christianity had reached Rome long before 56AD?

[Hope]

Tacitus and Josephus whom you are climing as proof of the Jesus story's truth WERE literate!

A comment that, when taken in conjunction with your post that I have just responded to, seems to indicate that the Jesus story has far more evidence for it than you wanted us to believe earlier in the thread.

[Nearly Sane]

Messiah would have probably been used in the sense that the Jews named the Messiah as being their saviour and to this day do not acknowledge that Jesus was THE messiah.

But given Tacitus is a Roman that doesn't really apply.

[Owlswing]

Tacitus was not born until 56CE, twenty-five years after the death of Christ, and except for his service in the army lived in Rome, so the likelyhood of him having ever met anyone who met Christ is remote.

Josephus wrote about early Christianity in 94CE and had lived in Rome since 67CE and never mentioned having met Christ or anyone who had.

Thanks for that, Matt.  So, are you suggesting that they both got their information from the Roman authorities, rather than from any Christians?

Yes - unless you can show that there were Christians in Rome at the time that these learned men were writing!

It is impossible to have a "discussion" on the subject of Jesus and Christianity with you as you do not "discuss" anything; you just state everything baldly as being fact and accepting no rebuttal. This is due to the flat refusal of Christians to accept that their religion is as much a matter of faith as every other religion.

Yes, I am repeating myself, why should I not, you do it all the time! The same statements of faith posing as facts again and again.

[Hope]

In view of the attitude of society to Christians at the time (that they were of no consequence and potentially 'outlaws' - in the sense that they broke Imperial laws in  refusing to worship the Emperor), is it likely that Tacitus or Josephus [the latter a Jew] would have spoken to them

I assume you have a "not" missing here. What other source would you claim for Tacitus and Josephus?

No -  where are you suggesting it should be?  I assume that you think that it would be somewhere amongst 'would have spoken to them'.  Are you suggesting that Tacitus and Josephus would have hunted out domestic servants and slaves (who made up the bulk of the church in the first 100 years or so of Christianity) to ask them about the founder of their faith.  In view of who they were and who they wrote for, I'd suggest that their main sources would have been other Romans, especially those in authority.

[Hope]

Yes - unless you can show that there were Christians in Rome at the time that these learned men were writing!

Well, Paul wrote his letter to the church in Rome during the 50s, so there is no problem showing that fact.     Remember too, that the great fire of Rome (64 AD) was attributed - at least by Nero - to the activities of Rome's Christians.

The majority of scholars writing on Romans propose the letter was written in late 55/early 56 or late 56/early 57.  Early 58 and early 55 both have some support, while German New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann argues for a date as early as 51/52 (or 54/55) following on from Knox, who proposed 53/54. Lüdemann is the only serious challenge to the consensus of mid to late 50s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Romans#Dating

It is impossible to have a "discussion" on the subject of Jesus and Christianity with you as you do not "discuss" anything; ...

The problem with this viewpoint is that so much of what you post is provably wrong - look at the historical inaccuracies in your last few posts.

It has nothing to do with

you just state everything baldly as being fact and accepting no rebuttal. This is due to the flat refusal of Christians to accept that their religion is as much a matter of faith as every other religion.

It has to do with the FACTS that exist within the historical record.  The only part of Christianity that is really under dispute by anyone who is serious about the issue is the reesurrection - and that, I would agree, is largely down to faith, but with some of the written evidence you are so keen on to support it.

[Hope]

If you are going to claim a supernatural aspect to Jesus, please stop pretending to be using historical argument.

That's an interesting complaint, jeremy.  Never heard it put in quite that fashion!!  I will use what historical argument exists as and where it's appropriate - so I will refer to literary records that refer to the crucifixion of someone deemed by the Jewish leaders to be dangerous to the Jews, and point out that other literary records associate that death with a reported resurrection that occurred on the 3rd day after said crucifixion.

[floo]

I think Jesus was probably crucified for being a total pain in the backside where the religious mob of the day were concerned.

I understand that the historical records back both this opinion and the fact that other Jewish rebels were executed for this reason.

The resurrection, if the guy was truly dead, is complete fantasy! No one comes back to life once they are dead.

This only applies if the person is human and only human.  Since science only deals in the physical, there is no way that it can prove (or disprove) the existence of any additional elements of reality.

That guy Jesus was human just like the rest of us, he had some very human characteristics. He had a temper, he was attention seeking, he was arrogant. If he had been any sort of deity I think it might have been obvious to all not just his sycophantic followers.

Of course no one deserved to die the sort of death Jesus did even if he was a right pain in the rear end. 

[Nearly Sane]

It has to do with the FACTS that exist within the historical record.  The only part of Christianity that is really under dispute by anyone who is serious about the issue is the reesurrection - and that, I would agree, is largely down to faith, but with some of the written evidence you are so keen on to support it.

And it was all going so well - written evidence works with a methodlogy such as history which is materialistic. As said many many times before for something to be evidence for a supernatural claim, you would need a supernaturalistic methodology. I know it's probably a forlorn 'hope' but do you have one? If not then you have no evidence

[Nearly Sane]

If you are going to claim a supernatural aspect to Jesus, please stop pretending to be using historical argument.

That's an interesting complaint, jeremy.  Never heard it put in quite that fashion!!  I will use what historical argument exists as and where it's appropriate - so I will refer to literary records that refer to the crucifixion of someone deemed by the Jewish leaders to be dangerous to the Jews, and point out that other literary records associate that death with a reported resurrection that occurred on the 3rd day after said crucifixion.

So you haven't read any of the many posts I've written on here about history as a study being methodologically naturalistic? Well I've added 2 this morning and this will be a third. History is a set of methods in terms of evidence and it assumes naturalism. To have evidence for a supernatural claim you would need a set of methods that is not currently part of historical study - have you got one? If not then the use of the word evidence in relation to how we use it in history, or indeed law, is barely even wrong.

[Hope]

Are you claiming that you witnessed your father suffering a hernia even though you weren't alive at the time? Or are you claiming that you witnessed him recounting the story at a later date? There's a difference.

Obviously, the latter, but I am able to attest to the veracity of his attestation as a result of certain verbal and physical evidences.  My point to NS was that one doesn't HAVE to have been present in order to attest to something's veracity.

There's no evidence in either passage that they spoke to anybody. In fact, you can make a case for the passages to have been interpolated by later Christians.

That is only partially true, jeremy.  Scholars have only pinpointed certain passages within their reports as possibly having been interpolated by later Christians, and those passages don't include all the references to Christ.  Furthermore, I don't think that anyone has come up with any evidence that it was DEFINITELY added at a later date, which is why the debate over this continues amongst scholars.

[Hope]

So you haven't read any of the many posts I've written on here about history as a study being methodologically naturalistic? Well I've added 2 this morning and this will be a third. History is a set of methods in terms of evidence and it assumes naturalism.

And, of course, the scholars who assert that there was a historical Jesus use this method, NS - as do I.  The only aspect that has to rely on something beyond naturalism is the resurrection.

To have evidence for a supernatural claim ...

Interestingly, the topic of this thread has nothing to do with the supernatural.  We know that, over time, the Romans crucified 1000s of people - all of whom would have suffered in a way very similar to that laid out in the OP.

To repeat, for the 4th or 5th time on this thread alone, the only aspect of the Christian story that definitely can't be proven by the use of naturalistic, historical evidence is the resurrection.

[Hope]

And it was all going so well - written evidence works with a methodlogy such as history which is materialistic. As said many many times before for something to be evidence for a supernatural claim, you would need a supernaturalistic methodology. I know it's probably a forlorn 'hope' but do you have one? If not then you have no evidence

Are you suggesting that the huge number of scholars who say that there was a historical Jesus are wrong?

I know that the Christian story includes 2 supernatural events - Jesus' birth and resurrection - but when you remember what Jesus taught about the purpose of his being born as a human being, one only needs to categorically disprove the resurrection to disprove both.

[Outrider]

Both Tacitus  -  a well-respected historian  -   and Josephus, attested to the reality of the Crucifixion.  There are other references.  Some people post in the most abject ignorance!

Tacitus attested to the reality of Christians, suggesting people who beleived the crucifixion but not saying very much about the crucifixion itself.

Josephus' personal history is one of self-service rather than impartial adherence to truth. Josephus birth was after the purported death of Jesus, so again his commentary is at best 2nd hand and attests to early Christianity rather than to anything actually about Christ.

To return to the original post for a moment, I don't think anybody questions that crucifixion is a brutal, horrendous way to die, and we feel for anyone that was put through it as much as we can from our purely academic understanding of the experience. People don't doubt that crucifixions happened, and it's entirely reasonable to suppose that the figure the idea of Jesus is based upon may well have been crucified, may even have believe that he was the son of God, or the incarnation of God and was doing it for mankind as a whole.

What we question isn't whether crucifixion happened, but whether there's a god that created an avatar in the first place.

O.

[Hope]

... but whether there's a god that created an avatar in the first place.

Not sure that even Christians believe that this took place, O, so I think its a bit of a red-herring.  I think that, as naturalistic beings, humanity will find it hard to disprove the existence of a deity.

[Outrider]

Are you suggesting that the huge number of scholars who say that there was a historical Jesus are wrong?

No, we're suggesting there's a difference between 'The Historical Jesus' and the myth of Jesus depicted in scripture.

I know that the Christian story includes 2 supernatural events - Jesus' birth and resurrection - but when you remember what Jesus taught about the purpose of his being born as a human being, one only needs to categorically disprove the resurrection to disprove both.

It involves many more supernatural events than that - the exorcism of spirits into pigs, walking on water, turning water into wine etc.

We don't, though, have any obligation to 'disprove' the resurrection, as it's only been asserted. There's no reason to think it's true. There's no more obligation on us to disprove the resurrection of Jesus than there is to disprove the resurrection of Osiris, or the events of Ragnarok, or the chaining of Prometheus to the rocks.

O.

[Outrider]

... but whether there's a god that created an avatar in the first place.

Not sure that even Christians believe that this took place, O, so I think its a bit of a red-herring.  I think that, as naturalistic beings, humanity will find it hard to disprove the existence of a deity.

I'm sorry, I thought Jesus was God incarnated in human form? That's an avatar of a deity - that might be an expression from a different superstitious tradition, but it's essentially the same claim.

As naturalistic beings, humanity would indeed find it difficult to disprove the existence of a deity... or unicorns, or demons or celestial teapots or intangible floating spiritual monkey testicles on a string.

That's why humanity generally doesn't work on the presumption that there's an onus on people to disprove every random unsupported assertion that's made - you have to make a case for your claims, or we can just do the academic version of 'whatevs', and return to the serious work of determining which biscuit is superior^*.

O.

^* That's not really much of a discussion, it's obvious chocolate hob-nobs because no-one can disprove the claim.

[Owlswing]

 . . . and return to the serious work of determining which biscuit is superior^*.

O.

^* That's not really much of a discussion, it's obvious chocolate hob-nobs because no-one can disprove the claim.

Rubbish! Garibaldi's by a country mile! With Custard Creams a close second, maybe Chocolate Hob-Nobs third!

[floo]

 . . . and return to the serious work of determining which biscuit is superior^*.

O.

^* That's not really much of a discussion, it's obvious chocolate hob-nobs because no-one can disprove the claim.

Rubbish! Garibaldi's by a country mile! With Custard Creams a close second, maybe Chocolate Hob-Nobs third!

Custard creams should be banned they are YUCK!

[Shaker]

... but whether there's a god that created an avatar in the first place.

Not sure that even Christians believe that this took place, O, so I think its a bit of a red-herring.  I think that, as naturalistic beings, humanity will find it hard to disprove the existence of a deity.

There's a name for that fallacy, children. All together: one ... two ... three ...

[Nearly Sane]

So you haven't read any of the many posts I've written on here about history as a study being methodologically naturalistic? Well I've added 2 this morning and this will be a third. History is a set of methods in terms of evidence and it assumes naturalism.

And, of course, the scholars who assert that there was a historical Jesus use this method, NS - as do I.  The only aspect that has to rely on something beyond naturalism is the resurrection.

To have evidence for a supernatural claim ...

Interestingly, the topic of this thread has nothing to do with the supernatural.  We know that, over time, the Romans crucified 1000s of people - all of whom would have suffered in a way very similar to that laid out in the OP.

To repeat, for the 4th or 5th time on this thread alone, the only aspect of the Christian story that definitely can't be proven by the use of naturalistic, historical evidence is the resurrection.

Actually the existence of Jesus cannot be proven by naturalistic evidence either, strongly suggested but not proven. However my post was last relation to your statement that there was evidence for the resurrection. You have ignored that and your lack of methodology so I take it you are dropping the claim?