Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
The above are your words TC....you are suggesting as far as I can see that there are no "official records" or "administrative documents" as we would think today, outside of Second Temple Judaism which I admittedly know little about.
Then you say:
"It seems to me that you along with a number of mythicists are dismissing all the evidence in the Gospels and in Paul for the existence of Jesus, on the basis that they are agenda driven sources. "
I guess my answer to the above has to be yes, "until proven otherwise".
|
I think what you seem to missing here is that when we as ancient historians evaluate the events from ancient history, we must do so with the clear recognition that ALL sources are agenda driven. There is no proving otherwise because this is not a condition that is unique to the gospels. Virtually ALL ancient documents suffer in one way or another from their unusual (by modern standards) levels of political, racial or religious bias. Furthermore, ALL of our written sources of Roman and Greek history are sparse. If you are not willing to accept that there are legitimate historical claims to be drawn from the gospels, then in the interest of consistency, you must also call into serious question the validity of virtually all other historical data from the Roman period.
By way of another example, our best source for Jewish history from the Persian to the Roman periods is far and away in the works of Josephus. But Josephus is also very obviously agenda driven: He is extremely concerned to write an especially sympathetic appraisal of the Jews, while simultaneously appealing to his Roman benefactor. As historians, we must weigh these features when assessing Josephus's accounts of things, but this does not mean that Josephus is useless.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
It is you and your brethern's responsibility to educate the masses on the history/significances of the day and how that translates to a historical Jesus. That's the skeptic in me I guess.
|
I suppose that is fair, but from your presentation I would not agree that this is merely a healthy administration of scepticism. The above examples or theories that you have forwarded have been reaching, and I had hoped that my posts showed in basic outline more clearly the serious problems with your suppositions. My apologies if I have not been more clear here, but in many respects it feels as though you are being intentionally obtuse.