Jesus Has Left the Building, Part 3 (Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny)

[pablo16825]

If reading Eisenman is causing you to seek to understand all of the social and cultural trends of the 1st century then that is a good thing. If you are "staggered" at the "fanaticism" of the "jesus" movement then you do not yet really appreciate and understand the culture of the era. You and I would very likely be just like them, no different. Once you get a handle on the cultural (taxes, religious and civil corruption etc. etc.) constraints you can better understand what is happening.

[TaylorX04]

@pablo16825 I wasn't at all implying that I would be any different. What's staggering is that these things are very rarely taught to believers and generally not known unless you brush up a bit on your history from the right sources.

[pablo16825]

@splicedenergy sounds like you are looking in the national archives or your local tax assessors office for the "records" . Probably wont find them there. You wont find the historical records for the existence of over 2billion people born before 1800 there either. Sorry about that. The good news is that we can still reconstruct the rough parameters of the historical record of the ancient world from the evidence that is there and doing that is both enlightening and fun!

[pablo16825]

sorry about that, I hope I didn't get any spittle on your shirt. I feel like an old historian walking into a frat house full of teenagers. The historian must seek to understand every facet of the ancient's life, the economic and social conditions as well their beliefs and aspirations. Great historians understand the epoch and people and from that interpolate what happened and why it happened. Projecting back in time one's own biases and grievances with a religion today leads one astray.

[TaylorX04]

@pablo16825 Historians make inferences and inferences are always questionable. Any good historian knows he does not serve as an expert on what truly happened, but only what probably happened. I believe Jesus is best attested to by the historical evidence for his brother James, which is interestingly more abundant and more contemporary.

[pablo16825]

@TaylorX04 We are not far from each other. I found John Painter's book on James good. Studying the period of Seleucid domination that precedes the Maccabee and the critical Hasmonean period essential background. Why is Judaism spreading through out the Mediterranean? Why so much discontent with the established Jerusalem Temple authorities? Understanding even roughly who the Essenes were, who John the Baptist helps to understand the world that Jesus enters.

[TaylorX04]

@pablo16825 It was Robert Eisenman's book "James the Brother of Jesus" that changed my mind. He does a great job of contextualizing the first century in the wake of the Maccabees, Hasmoneans, and Essenes. It's staggering to realize the fanaticism that was going on at the time, between numerous factions, and to think that people find it so easy to believe Jesus and his followers were somehow exempt from it all.

[pablo16825]

I love when godless heathen, motivated purely by their emotional investment in their religious animosities, build a rube goldberg specular apparatus of historical interpretation. My comment was meant to show the absurdity of your pedantic methods to prove Jesus didnt exist. It was no less silly than saying that Julius Caesar didnt exist. You are making progress in recognizing how silly that would be. The goal of the historian is to make the most plausible case based on the evidence.

[TaylorX04]

@pablo16825 Yes, and the evidence for Caesar is overwhelming compared to the sparse evidence for Jesus, as I previously demonstrated. If you were to bring up Socrates or Confucius, you would be in trouble, however, because there ARE historians who doubt their existence, and yet we have sparse evidence for them that is even more informative than the evidence for Jesus! Talk about pedantic methods. Are you done making terrible arguments now?

[revjimbob]

@pablo16825

"godless heathen, motivated purely by their emotional investment in their religious animosities, build a rube goldberg specular apparatus of historical interpretation."

Sheesh.

Calm down there, boy - you got some spit on your collar.

[pablo16825]

See Taylor's other video where he proves that the mythical emperor Julius Caesar never existed. Taylor's brilliant expose points out that all of the evidence for the "alleged" Julius Caesar comes from sources within the peculiar sect of elite patrician families called the "Romans". This ancient sect had tremendous bias towards promoting their privileged status around the Mediterranean basin. Taylor exposes these biases and masterfully disregards the writings and agenda of Cicero and Tacitus!

[TaylorX04]

@pablo16825 I love when Christians steal arguments from apologists without knowing how flawed their arguments really are. In the case of Julius Caesar, we have several commentaries written by Caesar himself, while we have NO writings from Jesus. We have currency from 44 BCE with Julius Caesar's image on it, which - again - is unlike anything we have of Jesus. Caesar is also reported in MANY contemporary (in his lifetime) sources, while we have NO such sources from during Jesus' life.

[TaylorX04]

(cont'd) And for the record, I do now believe in a historical Jesus, though not the mythical figure of the gospels. I just thought I'd show what an asinine attempt at mockery your comment is, lol.

[stevenweir76]

@TaylorX04 - Why do you believe Jesus existed? I can't find any evidence.

[pablo16825]

@TaylorX04 Well that is good news, recognizing that there was a historical Jesus is progress, it might be worth your amending your silly video to accommodate your new found historical methods. If my mockery help in any way please dont feel compelled to thank me. I do this as a service to the young and naive.

[TaylorX04]

@pablo16825 I recognized because of something that has nothing to do with you or this video series. Your mockery only serves as indication of your arrogant stupidity. Young and naive, says the brainwashed religious fool.

[splicedenergy]

@pablo16825 See amazon discussions Who personally claimed to have met Jesus ?" in the Religion forum There is a comprehensive plethora for the lack of evidence there actually is. It just is not there.

[pablo16825]

@splicedenergy are you looking for signed and notarized affidavits to determine whether someone existed 2000 years ago?.. whatever standard of historical inquiry you are advocating here is comical and serves no historical purpose. The science of historical inquiry is to gather all evidence and determine the most plausible sequence of events. Any historian that can not acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth existed is blinded by religious bias. It is that simple.

[splicedenergy]

@pablo16825 No, historical records. They aren't there. I told you where to go to see the evidence if you refuse it that only means you know something isn't right but don't want to know specifics. Ignorance is bliss. Good day

[alvaboyfilms]

If having very few written references to Christ outside the bible within the first 50 yrs of his crucifixion qualifies Christ as a myth than having absolutely no written references eluding to Christ as a myth until 1840 (Bruno Bauer) over 1800 yrs after the crucifixion, by its own reasoning, would render the Christ myth a NO possibility. Internet sensationalist and many modern Jesus Mythologist fail miserably to bring anything new to the table.

[TaylorX04]

@alvaboyfilms Are you kidding me? You're gonna post this same shit on every video in the series? To anyone interested, see my evisceration of this nonsense in the comments on the first video.

[alexicoff]

@alvaboyfilms

Hm, have you tried to prove to the inquisition that Jesus wasn't real?

Are you shitting us or have you not thought of what Christians have done to heretics for the past 2000 years?

It was only in the 18th and 19th century when people could voice their opinions without fear of being burned at the stake.

[nauyarixu9]

The pagan Romans didn't really care about Christianity enough to write about it during Jesus' time, for them it was just a small incident in a far off province in Judea. Furthermore, the epigraphical evidence regarding Pilate's official position only proves that other epigraphical evidence concerning his official position has not been yet uncovered.

[sonicsoundwaveus]

Also to add they should of had something to say about Paul, since he was more relevent to the Time, and well known. Even to gentiles.

[ivlfounder]

This may be the worst effort to discredit Tacitus' record that I've ever seen.

[TaylorX04]

@ivlfounder That's ironic, since Tacitus' record has to be one of the worst excuses for "evidence" of a historical Jesus that I've ever seen. Hell, I think even Josephus has more ground to stand on. With Tacitus you've got a description of the beliefs of a group of people who had been blamed by Nero for the fire of Rome... and how on earth do you think you can extrapolate this into evidence for Jesus' historicity? It's desperation, quite simply.

[ivlfounder]

@TaylorX04

No we have a Roman Senator saying that Christ existed.

[TaylorX04]

@ivlfounder A Roman senator who didn't even know that Pilate was a prefect and not a procurator? The only reason Tacitus mentions Christ is to explain who the "Chrestians" were, not to testify for an historical person, because he wasn't alive in that time. Like I said, Tacitus relies on some other source in his description of Christ's death, and since it mistakenly refers to Pilate as a procurator, it's unlikely to be Roman records and more plausible that it's been passed onto him by believers.

[ivlfounder]

@TaylorX04

Were Romans made prefect and procurator for life?

[TaylorX04]

@ivlfounder No, but how is that even relevant? There is no evidence of Pilate being a procurator. Tacitus used a source that was mistaken because Roman political positions was not the focus of it, the beliefs of Chrestians was.

[ivlfounder]

@TaylorX04

Why couldn't he have held both titles then?

[MetaAn0naly]

Something that you've seem to be misunderstandings. For instance, the quotation from Trypho is about the Christ, not Jesus. He's saying that there is no evidence that the Messiah has come, and thus they have invented for themselves a Messiah. This isn't necessarily saying there wasn't a historical Jesus, but whatever.

[TaylorX04]

@MetaAn0naly I disagree. In Chapter 39, Trypho asks "prove to us that the man who according to you was crucified and rose into Heaven is the Messiah of God". Mind you, he's not just asking Justin to prove that Jesus was the messiah, he's questioning the crucifixion too ("according to you [he] was crucified"). This doesn't sound like someone who accepted a historical Jesus, but whatever.

[MetaAn0naly]

@MetaAn0naly Oh ok. I was only referring to that particular quote that you mentioned.

[TaylorX04]

@MetaAn0naly Yeah, I see how you understood it that way. Guess I should've included that quotation too, but ah well.

[MercuryRis]

Dio Cassius (c.155-235 CE), Roman History, 62.16-18 is a pretty thorough account of the Great Fire. Nothing is mentioned about Christians being blamed. The author makes reference to the Gauls, but also chronicles soldiers literally fanning the flames for the plunder.

[DSXmachine]

Biblical references confuse the matter completely. They should be discounted from all historical discussion.

[Serge1965]

In a box and if God fits in your little box, he is not God and not worthy of worship, from that disobedience, all have inherited sin because what is born of flesh remains corrupted until we humbly accept that fact and see our need to be saved from here, God will not allow the corruptible to inherit the incorruptible, sin will never be in His presence

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 Wasn't Jesus born of a woman, i.e. flesh?

It's funny when people accuse others of putting god in a box when you are the ones that persistently fail to define what god is. You can't say what something is not without having some idea of what it is. So, what IS god?

[Serge1965]

@TaylorX04 Jesus was conceived by God by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary was chosen to give birth to the Son of God because she had found favor in the eyes of her Lord for her devotion to God and pious lifestyle, not from the will of man nor from the will of flesh but by the will of God thru the Holy Spirit. God is not a what but a Who, His Divine attributes are knowable and so is His Character He is far more complex as an enbtity than we are, His ways are way above ours and His thoughts too

[Serge1965]

Anything will be said to avoid the true question: what about he sin nature? Humans have a built in rebelliious nature towards God and His Word so i guess loving the truth is not part of some humans? One only has to face the reality of sin in their lives to see their need of the only Savior that exists in Jesus Christ instead of wasting countless hours of brain gymnastics and deluded contrivances to try foolishly to prove that either God does not exist or that He does not judge, love the Truth

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 On the contrary, it is concepts like sin and the sinful nature of humanity that are born out of brain gymnastics and deluded contrivances. It is religion's way of shaming good people into buying its bag of cheap tricks. You come here preaching dogma as if it's self-evident even to non-believers. Talk about wasting time. You can't argue with the points of the video, so you rely on our imaginary sin nature to sweep it under the rug mentally. You're not fit to use the word truth.

[Serge1965]

@TaylorX04 I talk about what i see here and in society unless you live on drugs or on another planet, you brag about truth but if Truth was to stand there with you, you'd still deny the Absolute Truth who has a Name: Jesus Christ as This Name is offensive and challenges your sovereign will, what you don't get is that although in your delusional state you perceive yourself as a Free Thinker, you are just a slave like everybody else and are unable to see the prison bars of the cell you are in,

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 I see plenty of immorality, not least of which comes from religious zealots like yourself, and yet this does not qualify for sin. Sin is immorality redefined to include anything outside a certain faith-based ideology. The "absolute truth" you cling to is responsible for centuries of injustice and violence, both outside AND inside the bible. The prison and enslavement you speak of is your own creation, as no theist who believes in an omniscient and unerring god can be free.

[Serge1965]

@TaylorX04 You are in error, God is not responsible for our injustice and not responsible for our violence, you are just projecting on God what humans do to humans and that we did for centuries, sin is missing the mark established by the Proprietor of all living. Contrary to what you believe, the day the Lord sets you free, you are free indeed, i am not a good person because i follow the Lord, i am a sinner saved by the Grace of God and i am not religious but a free to love Christ believer

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 God is responsible for injustice and violence, and not just that perpetrated by humans. If you worship the god of the bible, you worship a god who drowned most of humanity in a flood, who killed the firstborn child of every Egyptian to make a point to pharaoh (whose heart God had hardened himself), and who decreed such loving laws as stoning disobedient children, allowing slavery, marriage of rape victims to their rapists, and so on. This is not human behavior, it is God's behavior.

[TaylorX04]

(cont'd) You are not free because you have no free will. You believe in a god who knows everything before we do it and who can never be wrong. Therefore you are only capable of doing what God already knows you will do. That is not freedom. You still act like sin is enslavement, while providing absolutely no evidence for sin. Like I said, brain gymnastics and deluded contrivances are on your side, not mine. ;-)

[Serge1965]

@TaylorX04 Yes He did and if you were honest, you would have added that mankind had become so corrupt that God grieved with all the violence and wickedness produced by man that by love of His creation, He had to destroy it so that 1 righteous person whio was walking with Him would be spared the righteous wrath and that 1 person was allowed to bring family along to have a new start, you read out of context on purpose to suit your willingful ignorance of God's love and righteous Judgement to come

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 So your all-knowing god grieved that humanity became so corrupted? Why did he create them in the first place if he knew that would happen, and he'd have to annihilate so many of them?

I haven't taken anything out of context, you're simply making excuses. Is your god not powerful enough to take care of corruption without destroying his own creation? You think he accomplished that through Jesus, but why wait the 10,000+ years? Some divine plan!

[Serge1965]

@TaylorX04 He didn't create us out of need but because He is Love and because He wants beings that are not robots but have free will and backbone to decide to love Him in a reciprocal way. Those who drowned had 120 years to repent from their evil deeds just as this generation is being told to repent as Jesus Christ is coming back and ironicly, Jesus said: As in the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24:37) 6000 years of Grace, He wills none perish

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 He wills that none should perish, and yet who was it that put the tree and serpent in the garden? Oh yeah, it was GOD. And who was it that forbade Adam and Eve to eat of the tree, without explaining a thing to them about good and evil, or the dangers of deception, the responsibility for disobedience, etc? Oh yeah, that was God too. 6000 years of grace my ass.

[Serge1965]

@TaylorX04 He is the Master of the Universe, we are on His turf, He makes the rules, he gives you breathe and can take it away without notice, like a father he is the Authority. When you break the rules, there are consequences, you have to be intelligent enough to recognize that the Master of the house says what He means and means what He says, your choice in this FALLEN creation is to repent (turn 180 degrees) and realize that free will means responsibility

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 This "fallen" creation is nothing but God's responsibility, according to the mythical story in the bible. Like if a father put his infant children in a room with a box and told them not to open it without explaining why. Then when they open the box, he punishes them and their descendants for all eternity. What a loving and righteous father indeed! You do know that saying, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out"? How would that be excusable for a father to say literally?

[Serge1965]

@TaylorX04 @TaylorX04 What you don't get is that they were not infants but fully grown and intelligent adults, deception from fallen angels is quite seductive and many intelligent people today get killed in sects even when they hold high position in society, the occult still exist and the first couple had to obey only 1 rule but they chose to disobey and lost fellowship with a Holy(Pure) God, you cannot compare a Perfect Divine Being with a fallen human creation, it would be like putting God ctd

[TaylorX04]

@Serge1965 Fully grown and intelligent? What corner of your ass are you pulling this from? Adam and Eve did not have the knowledge of good and evil or right and wrong until they ate from the tree - that was the whole point of the metaphor. It never ceases to amaze me to see just what a piss poor understanding of literature biblical literalists have.

[MercuryRis]

I read in the Christ Conspiracy, I believe, that several of the early martyrs, such as Polycarp, were fabrications to sensationalize martyrdom. Makes sense. St. Denis walked for three days with his head under his arm!

[SonnyDelight55]

Where in Tacitus does it say "this is what christians believe" Tacitus was to reliable to be just repeating hearsay, and pilate was also called procurator by Josephus so that argument is pointless. You keep saying that we have to have contemporary evidence to prove that somebody existed. Using that logic we would also have to deny that Alexander the Great existed, the earliest account for him is by Diodorus of sicily, over 300 years after he existed.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 Wow, exercise some reading comprehension and logic. Tacitus wrote over 80 years after Jesus' alleged death and he never knew Jesus. Since all of Jesus' followers would have been dead that much later, Tacitus could only have commented on hearsay and legend. He was too reliable? Based on what? He was reporting on Nero, not Christians, so accurately reporting Christianity's claims from a historical standpoint was not his biggest concern. Your arguments for Tacitus are very poor.

[TaylorX04]

(cont'd) The historicity of Alexander the Great HAS been in question for a while, in case you didn't know. Even so, there is evidence for the burning of Persepolis, the dynasties left by his conquests, and more. There is no equivalent historical corroboration of the stories surrounding Jesus. No temple curtain tearing, no zombies rising from their graves, no empty tomb, nada. Alexander was a minor historical character compared to Jesus too, so his reality or myth would hardly matter to most.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 "over 80 years" So what? The earliest writings for Alexander the great are over 300 years later. What kind of evidence are you looking for? it seems like your just gonna come up with any excuse to say that sources are unreliable.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 As I said, there is debate on how historical Alexander the Great was. Those sources are questioned too. My point was merely that 80 years after Jesus' death means Tacitus could not have interviewed eyewitnesses, could not have been a witness to Jesus, and was reporting hearsay. Hearsay isn't always incorrect, but considering Tacitus was not focusing on the historical truth of Christianity, its unlikely that he checked to verify his sources. You just excuse any challenge to faith.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 There is no debate over wether or not Alexander the Great was historical and those sources are not questioned (at least not by credible historians) Tacitus was an enemy of christianity, he would not have gotten his sources form christians, if fact he rejected information given to him by Pliny the younger, his friend, so what makes you think that he would get information from his enemies? Tacitus had access to the roman archives.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 "not by any credible historians" - I think this says it all. Are you a historian? Have you looked at any historians disputing Alexander the Great? The funny thing to me is that Socrates has contemporaneous accounts for him and yet there are plenty of historians who still do think he didn't exist. Are you going to call them irresponsible historians without even looking at their methods or arguments? Alexander was a conquerer who left signs of his conquests. Jesus isn't even close.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 Jesus has plenty of contemorary sources Paul, Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, and peter. "Jesus isn't even close" - lol, there is a whole religion based upon his existance that sprang within a year of within his lifetime.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 Contemporary sources are within the lifetime of an individual. You apparently don't know that, or else you'd realize the error in claiming the gospels and epistles as contemporary, since none of them predate ~55 AD. That's 25 years after Jesus' supposed death, not well within his lifetime, lol.

A year of his lifetime? Who's been feeding you this garbage? Lee Strobel? We have no evidence of a growing Christian sect until the 2nd century at the EARLIEST.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 Contemporary means that they lived during his lifetime. And if thats your definition of contemporary then that means we have no contemporary evidence for socrates. "We have no evidence of a christian sect in the first century" - Are you nuts? You could name plenty of christian documents from the first century, including 1 corinthians 15 wich contains a creed wich dates with a year of Jesus' lifetime. You really need to get in touch with modern scholarship.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 "no contemporary evidence for socrates" - except for Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. I'm beginning to think you just want to argue without doing the research on your own claims.

Hahaha, the 1 Corinthians 15 "creed" is more Christian fantasy. Show me ANY realistic evidence that the passage dates back to a year within Jesus' life. Apologists speculate based on the simplicity of the language in it, but there is no proof whatsoever. It's as hypothetical as the Q document.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 Yes, plato and xenophon were contemporary with socrates, but they did not write about him until after socrates lived. Its the same with the gospels and the epistles. A creed is an oral tradition that is passed down to different people. Paul states that he got the creed from the diciples at jerusalem five years after Jesus lifetime, that mean that the diciples had it before he did. I'm only telling you what the majority of critical scholars except.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 I didn't say they had to write about Socrates while he was alive, I said they had to live during his lifetime. None of the men you've brought up were alive during Jesus' lifetime at all, save for the disciples, who have not left us written accounts (Mark and Luke were not contemporary, Matthew's authorship is highly disputed by scholars, as is John's).

Where does Paul state the creed's origin? In Galatians 1:11-12, Paul says his gospel comes "from no man".

[TaylorX04]

Sorry, didn't mean Mark and Luke were not contemporary, just that they did not meet Jesus during his life.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 Paul lived during Jesus lifetime. Even if we assume that the gospels are anonymous, there still written early enough to be contemporary. And your wrong about luke and mark, they did live during Jesus' lifetime. "highly disputed" - Your doing exactly what you accused me of doing, your appealing to authority.

When paul said he received he gospel from no man he was not referring to the creed, he was talking about Jesus' appearance to him. In 1 corinthians he said that he "passed on

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 Paul lived during Jesus' time, but as I've already said, the extent of his witness to Jesus was having a postmortem "vision" of him. This is religion we're talking about with Paul, not historical validation. I corrected myself on Luke and Mark - they were contemporary, but never met Jesus before his death.

I'm not saying believe the scholars because they're scholars. There is plenty of reason to acknowledge that John and Matthew are anonymous... like the fact that they are.

[NotWhollySane]

@TaylorX04

Wouldn't the Gospels be evidence of a growing christian sect? I think it's pretty safe to date them at 70 A.D. Why do you think that we don't have evidence of christianity until the 2nd century?

[TaylorX04]

@NotWhollySane Well, we really don't have evidence for any gospel before 125 AD, when the first fragment dates to. The 70 AD dating of Mark is based a lot on the event of the temple destruction, but that could've been written about at any time after 70 AD too. I don't think Mark is evidence of a growing Christian sect, because it's not written as anything other than a sort of allegorical warning. Matthew and the other gospels are closer to 85-90 AD, which is almost 2nd century anyway.

[NotWhollySane]

@TaylorX04

Well I think Mark and Mathew fit perfectly with being just after the Jewish Roman war. I can understand the message from that frame of time. "The world is going to end and this guy Jesus is going to come back and beat the crap out of the romans and make everything all right". If we date it as 2nd Century none of it makes sense. While I was looking into the mentions of the Gospels I discovered that Papias survives only in Eusebuis. I had to lol at that.

[TaylorX04]

@NotWhollySane I don't think that was the tone of Mark at all, since it's far more negative, i.e. no one seems to understand or appreciate the messiah. Matthew's gospel is more concerned with fitting Jesus to Hebrew scripture than portraying him as a conquering figure. It's not until John that he's depicted as this Logos that has always existed and is a powerful, divine being who the Romans are no match for.

[NotWhollySane]

@TaylorX04

Maybe I shouldn't have paraphrased the message of Mark so freely. The idea of Jesus returning as a warlord wasn't exactly what I meant to present. The Jewish sects of the time expected God to come down and end the current age of Roman domination by bringing about "The kingdom of the Lord". Mark's message was simular to that except that Jesus was God's chosen messiah. That is why Mark, Mathew, and Luke all have Jesus predicting the fall of the 2nd Temple and a coming apocalypse.

[TaylorX04]

(cont'd) Jesus is a religious figure, not a conqueror, and religious figures have been known to be myth many times before. You're comparing apples and oranges. Contemporaries did write of Alexander, btw, but none of the copies survive. We have no evidence of contemporary accounts of Jesus though, not even mentioned by later historians. A Roman record of Jesus is Christian fantasy. Tacitus was commenting on what he heard, which may not have been from Christians.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 cont. what he had received" and according to luke, his companion, he got it from peter and john in jerusalem about 5 years after jesus.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 Where does Luke say that? Paul talks about passing on what he received in 1 Corinthians 15 right after saying "By THIS GOSPEL you are saved...", so what makes you think he's relating a creed and not the gospel? He says nothing in the passage about it being a creed, he says nothing about receiving it from men, and it could easily be that he was talking about passing on the gospel he receiving from God via divine revelation.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 Uh....its recorded in the book of acts, go read it. Paul is using the language of a creed, he says, "for I passed on to you what I received", This indicates an oral creed that far predates regardless of who he got it from. but paul was converted 5 years after the life of jesus, wich obviously means that somebody believed it before he did. This conversation is getting old, so just answer this question: If jesus never existed, what was the cause of the diciples belief.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 Lol, sure, I'll just go thumb through all of Acts because you can't tell me where it is. Probably because it's not really there. The "language of a creed"? Can you point me to any other example of a creed being introduced in the way Paul allegedly does? You are right that this conversation is getting old. I keep knocking down your objections and you keep peddling new nonsense without evidence. The disciples could've believed a mythical idea like any Roman mystery cult of the time

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 Lol. You haven' knocked down any of my objections. You just keep coming up with excuses to say that everything is unreliable. Whats funny is that even critical scholars would agree with me on this. You need to give my an explanation for the diciples belief that they had been jesus' diciples instead of just saying "they just did"

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 Wow, you're still beating this dead horse. We don't know that the disciples DID believe themselves to be Jesus' disciples, because we don't have their writings, for the 500th time. You pretend we do, but defending tradition by saying "I see no reason to doubt it" is an argument from ignorance. Talk about making excuses! All we have are other authors commenting on the disciples, calling them disciples of Jesus.

[SonnyDelight55]

@TaylorX04 It is a historical fact that the diciples believed that they were his diciples. Even if we don't have there writings, we still have the writings of paul and the church fathers who knew them. You still haven't refuted what I said about the authorship of the gosples, until you do my argument still stands.

[TaylorX04]

@SonnyDelight55 It's not clear that the church fathers knew them, and Paul says some puzzling things about these disciples he "knew" in that Christian creed of yours. He implies that Peter was not among the Twelve, and the mention of the Twelve is odd, since Judas died before Christ's ascension (Matt. 27:3), and his replacement, Matthias, was not chosen until after the ascension (Acts 1:26).

An argument from ignorance about the gospel authorship can't stand.

[Moussyed]

Taylor, do you still answer private messages?

I've sent 3 or so in the past few weeks and i haven't received responses from any of them.

[TaylorX04]

@Moussyed I'm getting quite a lot more PMs than I used to, and my schedule has become pretty busy lately with a new job I've picked up (hence the one video per week). Sorry I haven't responded, but I'll try to get to them soon.

[fpissarra]

Another great video!

[OnTheFritz602]

Has Kabane The Christian discovered these videos yet? lol

That kid's head would explode.

[petehjr1]

Dude you should have a debate with that guy who does the Naked Achiologist(sp) show. The few shows I've seen he just seems to be making shit up.

[supermanlives1973]

Thank you for this excellent series, Taylor. I look forward to the next instalments. :)

[AnUglyAmerican]

good vid but i had to watch it twice to absorb all the info

[EdwardHowton]

Never underestimate the power of sticking your fingers in your ears and going LA LA LA LA LA to make the evil Facts go away. Oh, if only they'd read as far as 1 Corinthians 13:11...

[Godshoulddie]

What's interesting about Tacitus is that there is no mention by other historians of the time, Suetonius and Cassisu Dio, of Neros persecution of Christians. Once again, a christian insertion.

[NotWhollySane]

@Godshoulddie

Just because nobody else mentions what Tacitus mentions doesn't mean it's a christian insertion. To be honest it's that kind of rhetoric that makes me extremely skeptical of mythicism at all. Oh and awesome name BTW.

[Godshoulddie]

@NotWhollySane

It is interesting, though, isn't it? I mean, Cassius Dio and Suetonius were no lovers of Nero and yet they make no mention of Nero burning Rome and blaming the Christians?

[Godshoulddie]

@NotWhollySane

It's even further interesting that Tacitus HIMSELF says that Nero didn't burn Rome. Tacitus tells us that Nero was at Antium and did all he could to ameroliate the suffering and even mentions the false rumor of his playing the Sack of Ilium while Rome burned...yet, somehow, just a few passages earlier he is accusing Nero of burning Rome and fastening the blame on Christians? Sorry, Christian insertion.

[NotWhollySane]

@Godshoulddie

Ok *now* you have an argument. Tacitus saying "Nero burned rome" and then a few pages later saying "Nero did not burn rome" would reek of forgery. So I'll have to check out what you say when I have the time. What I like about TaylorX04 is that he gives arguments and not rhetoric.

[Godshoulddie]

@NotWhollySane

That passage regarding Nero being at Antium is in the Annals previous to the questionable passage. Then we have the silence of Cassius Dio, Suetonius and JOSEPHUS, who was a contemporary of Nero and even had an audience before him. Yet all of these OTHER historians fail to mention Nero putting the blame for the burning of Rome on the Christians or Neros' persecution of them. Interesting, eh?

[Godshoulddie]

@NotWhollySane

By the way, I agree, Taylors stuff is good and well researched.

[macnutz]

Thanks again for an informative and very interesting video.

[MATZAMAN76]

Taylor,...I sent a long play list of your videos to my pops. Total meltdown....He resorted to saying you are an ass hole....lol....

[OccamsView]

Very well done. I learned something today. Thank you.

[pumkinpi2]

I really enjoyed reading Tacitus. He was such a gossip, that I find his writing, if not reliable history, at least offering a very human insight into his times.

[NotWhollySane]

It kind of floors me that some people think these passages from Pliny or Tacitus are of any help.

[TaylorX04]

@NotWhollySane Yeah, but the worst are yet to come, lol. I've always thought the Josephus references were of at least somewhat justifiable use, but everything else is so miniscule and riddled with problems that it's dumbfounding to me when they're brought up as evidence.

[NotWhollySane]

Ha ha, I'm thrilled that you decided to include things from our discussion. Just so nobody gets confused by your quotation of my comment; I am not a mythicist. I'm a historical minimalist. That is to say I think the gospel stories are loosly based on some sort of historical Jesus, but not one that walked on water, rose from the grave, had 12 apostles, etc.

[maddogdelta]

What I find interesting is that if you take all these quotes at their face value, they still say absolutely nothing about the historicity of Jesus. Instead, they are all comments about the followers.

Yet people cling to them as though they were the same as eyewitness testimony.

[TaylorX04]

@maddogdelta I know, and that's exactly why I pointed it out in the previous video. The funny thing is that there are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life at all. It's not just that these extra-biblical ones were written too late after the fact, but even the earliest epistles were penned by someone who never met Jesus in person (Paul). Why do Christians not find this strange, and why do scholars seem perfectly comfortable with the fact that no secular sources mention Jesus until 60 years later?

[NotWhollySane]

@TaylorX04

When do you think Paul's epistles were written and why?

[TaylorX04]

@NotWhollySane I think there's good basis for the scholarly view that the authentic epistles were composed around 50-70 AD. They reflect earlier concepts of Christianity than the gospels, some of the historical details described do line up with events of that time, etc.

[NotWhollySane]

@TaylorX04

Which historical ideas line up with the events of that time? I think Paul is pre-gospels because his writings are a lot simpler. I've met mythicists who think Paul is post-gospel and that just boggles my mind. I mean if the gospels are first that would make paul's wrtings irrelevant.

[NotWhollySane]

@maddogdelta

Exactly. Even if you take them at their face value they are just comments on the christian sect.

[freethinker923]

0:46 I think Catholics/Orthodox use this verse to justify the "re-presentation" of christ to god through the eucharist. It is indeed contradictory to the evangelicals who claim jesus sacrificed himself only one time.

[fallbread]

it seems jesus was more then one person its interesting what your saying well done at that time they were a oral culture so i guess preaching the bible was oral and entertaiment at same time so to keep people interested they made up fantasic things like water in to wine walking on water ect and then later people wrote down them as supose truth its just a idea

[1n354a]

@fallbread I always like the idea that Jesus was nothing more than an amalgamation of many people, ideas, events, prophesies, and what-not...crafted by many groups of people over a period of time to become what we call Jesus today. It just seems to make more sense, all things considered.

[TaylorX04]

@1n354a And look at how Christians interpret Jesus today. There's enough ambiguity in his character for people to derive polar opposite conceptions of Jesus on virtually any issue.

[1n354a]

@TaylorX04 I don't think that that was the original intention of the creators of the Jesus character, but it is an unfortunate side effect. Movements and ideas do much better when there is a name or a face or person to own it and that is probably all the original Christians intended. If they knew how malleable their creation would end up being I question if they would have stuck with it.

[TaylorX04]

@1n354a I don't that was their intention either. My point is more that the amalgamation of ideas that went into Jesus is sort of exemplified by how many different Christians see themselves in Jesus.

[fallbread]

@1n354a so true 

[rationalmuscle]

@1n354a This is supported by many members of the Jesus Seminar group, myself as well. The sayings are pretty diverse. The argument that Jesus was natually complex is far weaker than (a) there were several sources and the followers got their oral traditions mixed up; or (b) the "evil" Jesus bits were added later by scribes desperate for followers.

[jesusisbling]

Mythology and metaphor....... The Council of Nicaea

Many gods, many sons, many mythologies....

[pirbird14]

I have seen some discussion to the effect that "Chrestus" was actually a very common slave name and is not "Chrestos, the Annointed One". You make a very good point about the title being used by all the other Messiah cults.

[bishofthebass]

Another great video. Keep up the good work.

[GuineaPigDan]

Thanks for covering the Talmud passage about the cord.

[Dwicker64]

You are so right Christians didn't know then and they still don't today.