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Originally Posted by troutman
Here is a Jewish historian who was born and grew up in Judea shortly after Pilate’s tumultous governorship, with its presumed crucifixion of a Jewish sage and wonder worker, a man whose followers claimed had risen from the dead and who gave rise to a vital new religious sect. Here is an historian who remembers and records in his work with staggering efficiency and in voluminous detail the events and personalities and socio-political subtleties of eight decades and more. Can we believe that Josephus would have been ignorant of this teaching revolutionary and the empire-wide movement he produced, or that for some unfathomable reason he chose to omit Jesus from his chronicles?
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Josephus was not ignorant of Jesus, nor did he omit him. He was a political historian, concerned with matters such as the Jewish-Roman war. the intentions of his writings were not the advancement or debunkment of christianity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
Contrary to what some apologists (not necessarily McDowell or Wilson) have suggested, it is not just 'Christ-mythicists' who deny that Tacitus provides independent confirmation of the historicity of Jesus; indeed, there are numerous Christian scholars who do the same!
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As I mentioned above, Tacitus' writtings don't implicitly name Jesus as a historical figure. Some scholars think it can be implied, others don't.