> > AutismUK
> > >93AD I think.
> >
> > Chris
> > So, he [Josephus] wasn't around during Jesus's life, but only after
> Christianity had
> > been established, and *well* after the date that Jesus was supposedly
> > resurrected? This hardly sounds like independent evidence of the truth of
> > New Testament claims.
>
>Paul Robson:
>It's as good as anything there is. Watch the desperate attempts of
>fundamentalists (or as Jones would call them "scholars") to plonk
>the Gospels at 40-50AD, and have them as "historical". There's
>little else ; Suetonius refers to unrest caused by Christians during
>Claudius' time, Pliny Yngr asks Trajan what he's supposed to do
>with Christians round about 102AD, Tacitus reports Nero tried to
>blame Christians for the Great Fire around 114AD. And that's it.
>
>There's a few second century Jewish responses, and a few
>things apologists desperately try to twist into evidence. Josephus
>isn't great, but it's almost all they've got, apart from circular Bible
>arguments.
Chris
So the situation (as far as evidence for the existence and exploits of
Jesus) is worse even than I would have thought. I'm *still* surprised at
what pitiful bits and pieces Christian apologists are willing to take as
proof or at least "really strong evidence" of the existence of, and
especially the truth of the stories about, Jesus. Nowhere else in
historiography would such stuff be considered serious proof of miraculous
events, but Christians take, and want us to take, these tiny bits of
dubious data as proof not only of mere journalistic claims (such as "Jesus
*appeared* to perform miracles") but of an entire *metaphysical* system,
including a bizarrely deranged and malevolent God, a cast of supernatural
characters and beings that no one has ever knowingly met (how would you
know whether what you were meeting was one of these beings or something
else?), and that, all in all, make about as much sense -- less, actually --
than "Jabberwocky."
Stephen Jones wants me to view this stuff "without prejudice." Fine: I
apply to it exactly the same principles and standards I apply to
*everything*. But, you know what? My meta-principle still keeps saying,
If an epistemological method can seemingly prove each of two mutually
incompatible propositions, even when used correctly, then that method,
as it stands, is unsound.
The relevance here is obvious. If bits and dregs like the quotes of
Josephus can prove the historicity of Jesus, his alleged exploits, and the
existence of God, then, using the same standards that would have to be used
to make that possible, we could *also* prove a mass of propositions that
are logically incompatible with these propositions. Therefore, on the
assumption that no incredible new rules of inference have been found that
would in fact uniquely justify these conclusions on the basis of the
evidence, I reject the kind of thinking that would allow these conclusions
to be based on such slim evidence.
Now, of course, I leave the door open in several ways:
First, there's the hint about the specification (and validation) of new
rules of inference that would allow the validation of the Jesus claims in a
way that would not *also* allow the equal validation of conflicting claims.
Second, regardless of my meta-epistemological principle, I am still willing
to review actual arguments. However, what I've seen so far is *worse* than
what I had expected, not better (this seems to be a pattern in both
Christian apologetics and in theistic creationism/ID theory; some fact or
claim or argument will be touted by supporters as something like an
irrefutable and clearly sound proof or argument, and then, when I finally
get a chance to examine it, it turns out to be no better than your average
"proof" that the circle can be squared by straight-edge and compass.
Such arguments are worse than this, actually, because the mistake in such a
"proof" of the square-ability of the circle (etc.) may in fact be very
subtle and such that even an honest and basically careful person might make
it, whereas the flaws in the case of claiming that the Josephus quotes
(etc.) are strong "independent" evidence of the existence, exploits, and
divinity of Jesus are never (to my knowledge) subtle at all. They are
errors that are right on the surface, for all to see, merely "by
inspection," as mathematicians are wont to say of some trivial implication
that can be seen without calculation.
While I'm at it, I will make another observation concerning the suggestion
that I and my ilk merely need to view the evidence "without prejudice."
This suggestion assumes that, were it not for out prejudices, we would be
able to see that the evidence rationally requires the conclusion that Jesus
lived, that he performed the stunts attributed to him, that he was somehow
a "branch" or avatar of God, and (of course) that the Christian God exists.
But, the whole point of my criticisms of arguments such as those that Jones
and others make for these conclusions is not that I don't *like* them, not
that I find them abhorrent (I *do* find the Biblical versions of God
abhorrent and immoral), but that there *is* no such rational basis for
these conclusions in the evidence and arguments claimed as such. My
prejudices are irrelevant, if you can rationally support your claim. My
prejudices may make it harder for me to follow the reasoning, and so forth,
but logic is logic, here as in mathematics, physics, and philosophy
generally. All that's needed is that Jones and/or others lay out their
facts and then argue *rationally* from those facts to their conclusions. I
take the existence of the Josephus quote as real, and, for the sake of
argument, I will even accept that he thought that what he was saying was
true, etc.
*Then* what? Josephus was born *after* the time during which Jesus was
supposed to have lived. By the time he wrote the statements in question, he
would have had to have reached some degree of adulthood. But, by then,
Christianity may have been well under way, even though the New Testament
was supposedly not cobbled together in its final form until some decades
after Jesus's time. Stories about people performing miracles are common
today, and, as far as I can tell, they are all false. The general evidence
of history and human nature and human culture suggests that such stories
have been around for thousands of years. The Jesus stories appear to be
just another set of such stories. Josephus likely heard them and perhaps
believed them, but this is of little significance if there is no
independent basis for thinking that Josephus had performed a serious
investigation and had objectively and rationally ruled out alternative
explanations for the currency of the stories. On the basis of the quotes,
it is clear that no such investigation was carried out, or he'd have
mentioned it.
No, Stephen, et al: This argument is too weak to be taken seriously, and
the reasoning involved is such that, were it applied to other similar
information, we could just as well seemingly prove that Jesus did *not*
exist, that Allah *and* Quetzalcoatl *do* exist, and so on.
Therefore, on strictly logical grounds, and completely independently of my
"prejudices" against taking mere stories as a basis for *metaphysical*
conclusions, I reject the argument. If there *is* some means of proving the
conclusions, this is not it, prejudice or no prejudice.
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