this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
250 points (90.3% liked)

No Stupid Questions

36172 readers
488 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] KneeTitts 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

then that mean 90% of historical figures can’t be proven to have existed

Well for most of those we tend to use independent verification for their existence. And in the case of jesus, we have literally zero Credible examples of independent verification.

[–] aidan 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And in the case of jesus, we have literally zero independent verification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_for_the_historicity_of_Jesus

[–] KneeTitts 24 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Even assuming the passage is totally genuine, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents Tacitus had to work with and it is unlikely that he would sift through what he did have to find the record of an obscure crucifixion, which suggests that Tacitus was repeating an urban myth whose source was likely the Christians themselves,[3]:344 especially since Tacitus was writing at a time when at least the three synoptic gospels are thought to already have been in circulation.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tacitus

According to Bart Ehrman, Josephus' passage about Jesus was altered by a Christian scribe, including the reference to Jesus as the Messiah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

Scholars have differing opinions on the total or partial authenticity of the reference in the passage to the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate.[15][30] The general scholarly view is that while the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic.

Respected Christian scholar R. T. France, for example, does not believe that the Tacitus passage provides sufficient independent testimony for the existence of Jesus [Franc.EvJ, 23] and agrees with G. A. Wells that the citation is of little value

A. The first line of the Tacitus passage says Chrestians, not Christians.

Suetonius says Chrestus was personally starting trouble in Rome during the reign of Claudius.

Suetonius is writing years after Tacitus yet doesn't mention that Chrestus died.

So Chrestus can't be Jesus because it's the wrong decade, wrong continent and missing a death.

B. The second line in Tacitus that mentions Christ and his death was never noticed until after the mid-fourth century. So this second line is fake.

P.S. Even if the second line was somehow authentic, the information would have come from Christians. This would be the equivalent of deriving Abraham's biography by talking to Muslims.

This is why Bart Ehrman specifically dismisses Tacitus and Josephus. As do most other biblical scholars.

In the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens, if this is all you got, you are holding an empty bag.

[–] aidan 0 points 6 months ago

Even assuming the passage is totally genuine, two fires had destroyed much in the way of official documents Tacitus had to work with and it is unlikely that he would sift through what he did have to find the record of an obscure crucifixion

Why? If it was a popular myth, why assume he wouldn't try to confirm/deny it

According to Bart Ehrman, Josephus' passage about Jesus was altered by a Christian scribe, including the reference to Jesus as the Messiah

So? I'm not presenting evidence for him being a Messiah. I am saying there is some independent evidence of him existing.

B. The second line in Tacitus that mentions Christ and his death was never noticed until after the mid-fourth century. So this second line is fake.

I agree that is bizarre, but not proof of it being fake. Though should be taken with a grain of salt.

This is why Bart Ehrman specifically dismisses Tacitus and Josephus. As do most other biblical scholars.

Who is Bart Ehrman and why relay his beliefs rather than speak for yourself?

[–] Shard 26 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

If you mean Jesus as described word for word in the bible? Yes you are right. Such a mythical figure never existed.

A man name Jesus from the first century AD? Who preached in the Levant? Who was baptized by a man named John and was later crucified? There is good enough evidence of such a person existing. This isn't even a debated question among new testament scholars anymore.

I see you are familiar with Bart Ehrman, Even he doesn't dispute that a historical Jesus existed.

https://youtu.be/43mDuIN5-ww

Here's an even deeper dive from Bart Ehrman.

https://youtu.be/4CD5DwrgWJ4