Oh, Fox News, you've done it again...

Guitar92player

...they really know how to take an interview and take it the wrong direction.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-fox-news-scan ... 02800.html

They made too much of a big deal out of his religion than actually talk about his book.


Whole interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY92TV4_Wc0

Bentleyspop

No one should be surprised by the hosts ignorance or by Fuxnews allowing it to air

:fp:

Byrnzie

Guitar92player wrote:

...they really know how to take an interview and take it the wrong direction.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-fox-news-scan ... 02800.html

They made too much of a big deal out of his religion than actually talk about his book.


Whole interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY92TV4_Wc0

Pretty pathetic interview from a clearly bigoted news station.

Still, Interesting that he says his book 'is about an historical man who walked the Earth 2000 years ago in a land called Palestine', when zero evidence exists that Jesus ever lived.

satansbed

Byrnzie wrote:

Guitar92player wrote:

...they really know how to take an interview and take it the wrong direction.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-fox-news-scan ... 02800.html

They made too much of a big deal out of his religion than actually talk about his book.


Whole interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY92TV4_Wc0

Pretty pathetic interview from a clearly bigoted news station.

Still, Interesting that he says his book 'is about an historical man who walked the Earth 2000 years ago in a land called Palestine', when zero evidence exists that Jesus ever lived.

except that there is some evidence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

not that he's actually the son of god or anything

Pingfah

He may be confusing evidence with proof.

Byrnzie

satansbed wrote:

except that there is some evidence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

No there isn't.

Byrnzie

Pingfah wrote:

He may be confusing evidence with proof.

No, I mean evidence. There is no evidence he ever lived. no historical, contemporary evidence of his existence. Nothing. Zilch.

Byrnzie

Josephus on Jesus

http://www.truthbeknown.com/josephus.htm
'Despite the best wishes of sincere believers and the erroneous claims of truculent apologists, the Testimonium Flavianum has been demonstrated continually over the centuries to be a forgery, likely interpolated by Catholic Church historian Eusebius in the fourth century...'


Josephus is the first non-Christian writer to mention Jesus. He does this in Books 18 and 20 of his Antiquities, from about 93 AD. It is worth giving the reference in Book 18 in full.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ . And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

For two centuries no Christian used this passage, although many of them quoted Josephus. For example, Origen quoted Josephus when writing 250,000 words against the pagan writer Celsus, but he never uses this passage even when it would have been most useful. In Chapter 6 of Book 1 of 'Contra Celsum', Origen wrote ' ..."Many shall say to Me in that day, In Thy name we have cast out devils, and done many wonderful works." Whether Celsus omitted this from intentional malignity, or from ignorance, I do not know..." Would not Origen have loved to show Josephus as writing that Jesus performed wonderful works?

In chapter 67 Origen quotes Celsus as follows '...this Jew of Celsus.... continues: "The old mythological fables, which attributed a divine origin to Perseus, and Amphion, and Aeacus, and Minos, were not believed by us. Nevertheless, that they might not appear unworthy of credit, they represented the deeds of these personages as great and wonderful, and truly beyond the power of man; but what hast thou done that is noble or wonderful either in deed or in word?' Wouldn't Origen have loved to answer Celsus's taunt by pointing out that the renowned Jewish historian Josephus said Jesus performed wonderful works.

It is admitted that the passage of Josephus was tampered with by Christians. Strictly speaking, this rules it out altogether as evidence. If a prosecution lawyer in a court case tried to introduce evidence that had been tampered with by prosecution witnesses, that evidence would be rejected. However, let us examine the claim that we can tell in this short paragraph by looking at the style, which phrases are Josephan and which are Christian interpolations. In passing I note that many Christians deny that we can tell by looking at the style that Paul did not write 1 or 2 Timothy, Titus or Ephesians, although there we have whole letters to work with, not just a few phrases.

It is worth pointing out that any Christian scribe who had just copied out 17 books of Josephus would be familiar with his style and easily able to express Christian thoughts in Josephan language.

Josephus only uses the phrase 'a wise man' about Solomon and Daniel. Would a first-century Pharisee bracket a crucified criminal with legendary kings and prophets? It was Christian writers who compared Jesus to Solomon (Matthew 12:42) and praised the wisdom of Jesus (Luke 2:46-52)

Josephus only used the phrase wonderful works about Elisha. As your email pointed out it was Christians who saw parallels between Jesus and Elijah and Elisha.

In Mark 6:2 , Jews praise the wisdom and mighty works of Jesus. Can we be sure that Josephus's 'wise man' and 'wonderful works' must be genuine as no Christian interpolator would have had any motive to portray Josephus the way the Gospels say Jews regarded Jesus? I doubt it.

Josephus's phrase 'the principal men' (ton proton andron) is mirrored in Luke 19:47 - 'the leaders among the people' (hoi protoi)

The passage of Josephus first appears in 'Ecclesiastical History' by Eusebius in about 320 AD. Eusebius also includes clearly fake letters by Jesus himself. Another quote of Josephus by Eusebius is especially interesting , as we can see how Eusebius would doctor quotes to make them support Christian writings .

Josephus wrote in Antiquities Book 19 Section 346 'But as he presently afterwards looked up, he saw an owl sitting on a certain rope over his head, and immediately understood that this bird was the messenger (Greek 'Angelos') of ill tidings...' Eusebius in his History (2.10) omits the words 'boubona - epi schoiniou tinos' (ie an owl on a certain rope) and retains only the 'angelos' or messenger. As it stands in Eusebius, the 'quote' of Josephus appears to support Acts 12:23 which mentions an 'angelos', but naturally does not say this messenger was an owl.

Eusebius is the first person to say that Josephus referred to 'the tribe of Christians' . Eusebius also said Tertullian referred to the tribe of Christians. He did not. Eusebius also said Trajan referred to the tribe of Christians. He did not.

To sum up, Josephus's mention of Jesus was unknown for two centuries, is admitted even by Christians to be tampered with and first appears in the work of somebody who produced forged letters of Jesus, doctored quotes of Josephus, and lied about one of the very phrases found in the Testimonium when saying that other ancient writers used it. Almost every phrase expresses Christian, not Jewish, beliefs about Jesus.

Tacitus on Jesus

Tacitus wrote about jesus in 115 A.D - 80 years after Jesus' supposed death. Secondly, his information was second-hand, and there is no evidence that he aquired this information from any independent sources, but that he simply repeated what Christians at the time were saying.

Also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on ... te_note-32
'Those critical of the passage's authenticity argue that early Christian writers likely would have sought to establish the historicity of Jesus via secular or non-Christian documents, and that their silence with regard to the Annals in this manner may suggest that the passage did not exist in early manuscripts. Furthermore, because the earliest surviving manuscript containing the passage is an 11th century Christian scribal copy, skeptics of the passage's authenticity argue that it may be the result of later Christian editing.'

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... jesus.html

'The next major ancient historian who supposedly mentions Jesus, and thus provides us with evidence that he was an historical character is Tacitus. Cornelius Tacitus wrote his Annals after 117 A.D. Their exact date of composition is not known, but we do know that it was at least 70 years after Jesus' supposed crucifixion. Jesus is not mentioned by name anywhere in the extant works of Tacitus. There is one mention of "Christus" in Book XV, Chapter 44, as follows:

"Nero looked around for a scapegoat, and inflicted the most fiendish tortures on a group of persons already hated by the people for their crimes. This was the sect known as Christians. Their founder, one Christus, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This checked the abominable superstition for a while, but it broke out again and spread, not merely through Judea, where it originated, but even to Rome itself, the great reservoir and collecting ground for every kind of depravity and filth. Those who confessed to being Christians were at once arrested, but on their testimony a great crowd of people were convicted, not so much on the charge of arson, but of hatred of the entire human race."(D.R. Dudley's translation)

While we know from the way in which the above is written that Tacitus did not claim to have firsthand knowledge of the origins of Christianity, we can see that he is repeating a story which was then commonly believed, namely that the founder of Christianity, one Christus, had been put to death under Tiberius. There are a number of serious difficulties which must be answered before this passage can be accepted as genuine. There is no other historical proof that Nero persecuted the Christians at all. There certainly were not multitudes of Christians in Rome at that date (circa 60 A.D.). In fact, the term "Christian" was not in common use in the first century. We know Nero was indifferent to various religions in his city, and, since he almost definitely did not start the fire in Rome, he did not need any group to be his scapegoat. Tacitus does not use the name Jesus, and writes as if the reader would know the name Pontius Pilate, two things which show that Tacitus was not working from official records or writing for non-Christian audiences, both of which we would expect him to have done if the passage were genuine.

Perhaps most damning to the authenticity of this passage is the fact that it is present almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (died in 403 A.D.), where it is mixed in with obviously false tales. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that Sulpicius could have copied this passage from Tacitus, as none of his contemporaries mention the passage. This means that it was probably not in the Tacitus manuscripts at that date. It is much more likely, then, that copyists working in the Dark Ages from the only existing manuscript of the Chronicle, simply copied the passage from Sulpicius into the manuscript of Tacitus which they were reproducing.

McDowell is on even shakier ground when he tries to promote the short mention of "Chrestus" in Suetonius. First, any scholar ought to learn to at least spell the name of the person he is writing about correctly. McDowell spells it incorrectly as "Seutonius." Then he makes the unforgivable and dishonest statement that "Chrestus" is "another spelling of Christus." This is not correct. "Chrestus" means 'The Good" in Greek, while "Christus" means "The Messiah." Actually, Chrestus was not an uncommon name in ancient Rome. Since Jesus was admittedly not in Rome instigating the Jews, we are almost definitely talking about someone other than Jesus here. I should mention that the entire relevant quotation from Suetonius which is involved here reads as follows: "As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome." The "he" is Claudius. As just mentioned, not even McDowell claims that Jesus was at Rome in 55 AD, when this incident is alleged to have occurred. It is also difficult to see why Jews would be led by Jesus. That is pretty strong evidence that this passage does not refer to Jesus of Nazareth at all, and so is irrelevant to our discussion of whether Jesus ever lived. We can, however, add the lack of a mention of Jesus in Suetonius to our list of "negative" evidence for the existence of Jesus as an historical person. The reference in Suetonius is Life of the Caesars (Claudius 25:4).



Tacitus used second-hand hearsay, and was written at least 70 years after the supposed death of Jesus. Also, the first copy of the book by Tacitus that contains mention of Jesus was published in the 11th century, and it's possible the mention of Jesus contained in it was added by the early Church scribes desperate to try and prove the existence of Jesus due to there being zero evidence from any other source.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... jesus.html
Perhaps most damning to the authenticity of this passage is the fact that it is present almost word-for-word in the Chronicle of Sulpicius Severus (died in 403 A.D.), where it is mixed in with obviously false tales. At the same time, it is highly unlikely that Sulpicius could have copied this passage from Tacitus, as none of his contemporaries mention the passage. This means that it was probably not in the Tacitus manuscripts at that date. It is much more likely, then, that copyists working in the Dark Ages from the only existing manuscript of the Chronicle, simply copied the passage from Sulpicius into the manuscript of Tacitus which they were reproducing.

Byrnzie

Guitar92player

C'mon, this isn't a thread about attacking people's beliefs. Let's be respectful.

gimmesometruth27

it is fox we are talking about. why are people shocked by this? i expect nothing less from these clowns.

Byrnzie

Guitar92player wrote:

C'mon, this isn't a thread about attacking people's beliefs. Let's be respectful.

Yes it is. Fox attacked the scholar they interviewed for being a Muslim. And I'm attacking them both for being full of shit.

otter

Byrnzie wrote:

Gettin nailed to shit tends to clam a person up. Well, there was one brave dude that wouldn't shut up. But he knew where he was going.

Why doubt that a man was so pure and perfect that his faith in God kept him alive? Why doubt that that pure perfect man was the only pure perfect man ever? And that He was, is, and will be God's son? This shit happened 2000 years ago for crying out loud.

I can't imagine being so naive and arrogant to actually think I can out-wit history.

Pingfah

Byrnzie wrote:

Pingfah wrote:

He may be confusing evidence with proof.

No, I mean evidence. There is no evidence he ever lived. no historical, contemporary evidence of his existence. Nothing. Zilch.

There are no first person accounts, this does not equate to there being no evidence at all. The reliability of the evidence we have is certainly up for debate, but it exists nonetheless.

For the record, I don't disagree that our historical view of Jesus is shaky and probably completely inaccurate, and that he is probably an amalgamation of myths.

satansbed

Byrnzie wrote:

Here are tons of scholars who disagree as well, there is evidence you just don't buy it

Byrnzie

otter wrote:

This shit happened 2000 years ago for crying out loud.

So what? Egyptian history stretches back 6000 years, along with Chinese history, and there's an abundance of written information, and archeological evidence, for both. There's also ample historical evidence shedding light on Greek and Roman times. You think there's any doubt on the existence of Caesar, or Socrates and Plato? No, because there's plenty of historical evidence to support the historicity of their lives. Whereas in the case of Jesus - whose supposedly the most important and amazing person who ever walked the Earth - there's none. Nada. Zilch.

otter wrote:

I can't imagine being so naive and arrogant to actually think I can out-wit history.

It's not history, because the Bible is a religious book, not an historical book. And no contemporary evidence from the period exists to prove that he ever actually lived, despite numerous histories of the period written at the time he was supposedly alive. There's no mention of him until at least 80 years after he was alleged to have died (in the work of Tacitus), and even that mention of him is hearsay, and comes from a book produced in the 11th century, which leads to the possibility that it was, like the mention of Jesus in the histories of Josephus, a later interpolation by Church scribes desperate to prove that he actually lived. There's also no archeological evidence that he existed.

Byrnzie

satansbed wrote:

Here are tons of scholars who disagree as well, there is evidence you just don't buy it

And what evidence might that be?

Eilian

Byrnzie wrote:

It's interesting that you should quote a man that has written a book making the argument FOR the historical Jesus in bolstering your argument AGAINST.

I sympathise with your frustration at people who claim the existence of non-scriptural evidence for Christ without being able to cite any, but...

Be careful in your quote mining.

Prince Of Dorkness

Guitar92player wrote:

C'mon, this isn't a thread about attacking people's beliefs. Let's be respectful.

Oh please.

At what point were Christians respectful of anyone?

They think their group delusion, made up fairy tales should be the basis for laws in the US. The rest of us think they should be basis for getting thrown in the loony bin where they belong.

Byrnzie

Eilian wrote:

Byrnzie wrote:

It's interesting that you should quote a man that has written a book making the argument FOR the historical Jesus in bolstering your argument AGAINST.

I sympathise with your frustration at people who claim the existence of non-scriptural evidence for Christ without being able to cite any, but...

Be careful in your quote mining.

Interesting. Did he claim that belief in an historical Jesus was a matter of faith? If not, then what does he base his belief on?

polaris_x

edit: cuz i'm a spaz!