is history on our side?

[bigheavyq]

I have a problem with this reasoning and could someone help me with this, PLEASE?

jonathan

"It tells us that he was crucified, that he died, and that he rose
from the dead. Some of the teachings most central to Scripture and
to the Christian faith tell us of concrete historical events; they
therefore tell us of the history and properties of things within the
cosmos. Christ died and then rose again; this tells us much about
some of the entities within the cosmos. It tells us something about
the history"---Planting a

Atheist "Todangst" writes:
And yet no historian ever noticed any Jesus the Christ.

I can't believe someone as supposedly intelligent as Plantinga would
make so many clearly irrational claims. If there really were a crowd
drawing, miracel working Jesus, then why didn't anyone notice?

A Silence that Screams
- Todangst (with Rook Hawkins)

"[T]here is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus,
not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not
during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence,
but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who
was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the
world. Someone should have noticed." - Dan Barker

It may surprise Christians to learn that there are no contemporary
historical documents for 'Jesus, the Christ'. While some apologists
attempt to wave this problem away by claiming that "Jesus"would not
have be en a noteworthy figure, this contradicts what the Gospels
say about Jesus. Even the relatively sober account of Jesus found in
the first gospel, The Gospel of 'Mark', gives an account of Jesus as
someone who garnered quite a bit of attention. Consider for example,
Mark 2:1-12, where the crowd coming to see Jesus is so great that a
paralytic has to be lowered through the roof of a building Jesus is
in, in order for Jesus to see him. Consider how the crowds so
overflow that he has to lecture from a boat on the Sea of Galilee.
Mark tells us of how Jesus performed miracles before thousands: on
two different occasions Jesus feeds thousands through miracles (see
for example, Mark 8:1). When Jesus travels from Bethany to
Jerusalem, throngs of people line the roads to welcome him.

In short, 'Mark' gives us a 'Jesus' who is bigger than the Beatles,
and I believe the Beatles analogy is a good one. We even have a nice
parallel between the story of Jesus' lecture at Galilee, and the
Beatles famous 'rooftop' audition, where they were forced to play an
impromptu concert on a rooftop, lest the crowds that would rush to
see them cause a riot. In both cases, the crowds had reached,
hysterical, historically noteworthy,proporti ons. Yet, John E.
Remsberg, in 'The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the
Evidence of His Existence' (The Truth Seeker Company, NY, no date,
pp. 24-25) makes the curious observation that no one from this era
wrote a single word about the Jesus Hysteria. Remsberg
notes: "(While) Enough of the writings of the authors named in the
foregoing list remains to form a library, (no where)... in this mass
of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged brief passages
in the works of a Jewish author (Josephus), and two disputed
passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no
mention of Jesus Christ."

Let's take a look at the more notable names on his list, just to get
an idea, again, of how glaring this silence is... We can call this
list:

"They Would Have Noticed"

Philo (~20 BCE - ~40 CE) was a Hellenized Jew who lived in
Alexandria, Egypt. He visited the Temple in Jerusalem, and
corresponded with family there. He wrote a great many books on
religion and philosophy which survive to this day, and mentioned
many of his contemporaries. His main theological contribution was
the development of the Logos, the "Word" that opens the Gospel of
John. Yet Philo not once mentions Jesus, anybody who could be
mistaken for Jesus, or any of the events of the New Testament. His
last writings come from 40 CE, only a few years after the end of
Pontius Pilate's reign, when he was part of an embassy sent by the
Alexandrian Jews to the Roman Emperor Caligula.

Philo wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that
Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near
Jerusalem when Christ's miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre
(which also has no independent corroboration) supposedly occurred.
He was there when Christ supposedly would have made his triumphal
entry in Jerusalem. He was there when the Crucifixion with its
attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the
dead would have taken place--when Christ himself supposedly would
have rose from the dead. Yet, none of these events are ever
mentioned by him.

It simply makes no sense that Philo would not have recorded
something about the Markian conceptualization of Jesus.

Pliny the Elder (~23 CE - 79 CE) wrote a Natural History that
mentions hundreds of people, major and minor; he even writes about
the Essenes in Natural History, section V, 15 . Yet nowhere in his
works is any mention of the Jesus phenomena described in Mark.

Pliny also provides us with a direct refutation of the Gospel claims
of earthquakes and eclipses. Pliny collected data on all manner of
natural and astronomical phenomena, even those which were legendary -
which he himself did not necessarily regard as factual, yet he
records no prodigies associated with the beliefs of Christians, such
as an earthquake or darkening of the skies at a crucifixion, or any
star of Bethlehem.

After Philo and Pliny the Elder one of the most damning omission
would be in the works of Josephus.

Josephus (37-100 AD) was not a contemporary and could not have been
a first hand eyewitness of "Jesus", however, as a Jewish historian
who focused on Jewish history and religion, he would have been
greatly interested in the appearance of the Jewish Messiah.

Josephus wrote The Antiquities of the Jews, See his works here. This
is a work that focused on Jewish history from "Adam" to Josephus'
time. Yet, while Josephus devotes a good deal of space ton John the
Baptist and other historical figures mentioned in the Gospels (He
gives a detailed account of Pontius Pilate in The Jewish Wars,
http://www.inu. net/skeptic/ gospels.html) he does not appear to have
actually written anything at all concerning the life of Jesus the
Christ! This is 'damning' considering that we would expect that the
appearance of the Jewish Messiah ought to have dominated a work
dedicated to Jewish history.

For this very reason, the claim that Josephus never mentions Jesus
was a concern for early Christians. For this reason it is no
surprise that there is a later interpolation into the Antiquities of
a reference to Jesus. The infamous "Testimonium Flavium" appears to
have been inserted into the Antiquities in the 4th century. A key
proof for this comes from the fact that while early Christians cited
Josephus, none of them ever cited the Testimonium, even in
situations where they were striving to provide historical proof for
Jesus:

Justin Martyr (circa C.E. 100-165) never once quoted the passage --
even in the face of charges that Christians had "invented some sort
of Christ for themselves" and that they had accepted "a futile
rumor" (Dialogue with Trypho 8; circa C.E. 135).
Origen (circa C.E. 185-254), who in his own writings relies
extensively upon the works of Josephus, does not mention this
passage or any other passage in Josephus that mentions Christ. Not
even when he is in dialogue against Celsus' accusations!
Jerome (circa C.E. 347-420) cites Josephus 90 times, but never once
cites the Testimonium.
Logic itself tells us that had Josephus written the Testimonium, he
would have written more than 3 lines concerning the existence of the
Jewish Messiah in a book dedicated to Jewish History!

Remsberg writes:

"Its brevity disproves its authenticity. Josephus' work is
voluminous and exhaustive. It comprises twenty books. Whole pages
are devoted to petty robbers and obscure seditious leaders. Nearly
fourty chapters are devoted to the life of a single king. Yet this
remarkable being, the greatest product of his race, a being of whom
the prophets foretold ten thousand wonderful things, a being greater
than any earthly king, is dismissed with a dozen lines."

-- The Christ, by John E. Remsburg, reprinted by Prometheus Books,
New York, 1994, pages 171-3.

Logic also provides us with yet another powerful clue as to the
falsity of the Testimonium: : Josephus lived and died a Jew, never
converting to Christianity. Ergo we can say that Josephus is silent
on the matter of the life of Jesus the Christ.

It should also be noted that some argue that Antiquities section
20.9 makes an indirect reference to Jesus. This claim is examined
here and also here There is good reason to believe that the
reference to a "Jesus' here is actually a reference to Jesus, son of
Damneus, and not 'Jesus, son of Joseph'. And again, the idea that a
Historian would mention the Messiah, in passing, and not elswhere,
in detail, is simply inane.

Plutarch (ca. 46 - 127), again, was not a contemporary, he wrote
about the same time as Josephus, about contemporary Roman figures,
oracles, prophesies, and moral, religious, and spiritual issues. A
figure such as Jesus, whom the Gospels portray as interacting with
Roman figures, making prophecies, and giving sermons on novel
religious and spiritual issues to throngs of people, would have been
of great interest to him. Yet we cannot find even a word
about "Jesus" from Plutarch.

Seneca the Younger (ca. 4 BC–AD 65) philosopher and statesman, who
wrote both philosophical works and papers on morality. He lived
during the purported time of Jesus, in the general area of Jesus,
and would have had contact with Roman authorities who in turn would
have had contacts with Jesus. Yet, he does not take note of any of
the miraculous events reported in the gospels.

Justus of Tiberius ( ? - 95 ?) Remsberg states that "Justus was a
native of Christ's own country, Galilee. He was a contemporary and
rival of Josephus. He wrote a history of Jewish people Kings (who
the gospels state Jesus had interactions with) covering the time of
Christ's reputed existence. This work perished, but Photius, a
Christian scholar and critic of the 9th century, was acquainted with
it and said, "He (Justus) makes not the least mention of the
appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the
wonderful works that he did." (Photius, Bibliotheca, Code 33)."

Dio Chrysostom (c. 40–c. 120) was a Greek orator, writer,
philosopher and historian of the Roman Empire in the first century.
Eighty of his Discourses remain in existence. While Chrysostom was
not a contemporary of Jesus' purported time (He was a contemporary
of Plutarch, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger) he was both a historian
and a person with great interest in moral matters. His philosophy
has been considered a moral parallel to that of Paul of Tarsus and
indicates that the early Greek Christians drew upon the Cynic and
Stoic philosophies when developing their Christian faith. So we
again have an early writer who certainly would have had interest in
Jesus as Mark or any of the other Gospels, present him.

Epictetus (55-130) Again, Epictetus was not born until sometime
after the purported time of Jesus, however, his silence remains
noteworthy. The best known Stoic was a slave, whose master was
Nero's secretary. A translator of Epictetus, Elizabeth Carter, was
baffled that he was not a Christian. "There are so many of the
sentiments and expressions of Christianity in it, that one should be
strongly tempted to think that Epictetus was acquainted with the New
Testament,.. " [p. xxii] Well, he was not and never even so much as
mentions Christians in passing. He lived in Rome and as a slave to
Epaphroditus, a senior member of Nero's government would have known
of the fire and the Christian sacrifice in the aftermath. However,
all he has to say about Nero is his persecution of some good men who
refused to attend his performances.

They all should have noticed. It appears that none did.

All that is left for us is to sum up what this means for "Jesus" of
the Gospels. The historian Edward Gibbons does this summing up for
us:

"But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and
philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by the
hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses?
During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first
disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by
innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were
healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of
Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But
the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle,
and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared
unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government
of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at
least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a
preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event,
which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the
devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and
history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder
Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received
the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these
philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great
phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors comets, and eclipses,
which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and
the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which
the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe"
(Rome, Vol. I, pp. 588-590).

Could the most amazing event ever go unnoticed? Only the
intellectual dishonest can answer with a "yes".

And this means Plantinga is either intellectually dishonest, or
incompetent, when he holds that there actually was a miracle
working, crowd drawing 'Jesus'.

One more reason why Plantinga cannot be taken seriously on matters
of theology.

 

[RamistThomist]

Yes, it can be difficult at times to jump "Lessing's Ditch" (e.g., impossibility of proving truths on the contingencies of history). 2 thoughts:

1) So what? Even if we had sweeping proof of Christ, those facts would be useless without a worldview.
2) And some historians have found references to Christ.

 

[Mathetes]

Only the truly naive try to make the assertion that there is poor attestation of Jesus as a historical person. We have far less evidence that Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar existed. I asked Jason Engwer about it once, and this was his response:

The early opponents of Christianity

 

[LockTheDeadbolt]

A few thoughts...

First, I wonder about the context for Plantinga’s statement. His philosophy and apologetics deal quite often with epistemology. I wonder if he may have been discussing Christian epistemological issues relating Scripture to metaphysics or history or something along those lines. Regardless, Platinga’s statement needs to defended (if it can be) on its own merits, with his own definitions of terms, and within its own context.

Second, the statement that “no historian ever noticed any Jesus the Christ” is very tendentious and arbitrary. Why are the NT authors excluded from this class of so-called “historians”?

Third, Dan Barker’s statement that “there is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus” rests on arbitrary assumptions. What timeframe relationship constitutes one as a “contemporary”? Again, why are the NT authors excluded from this category of so-called “contemporaries”? If being a sibling (James) or student (the disciples) of Jesus doesn’t qualify one as his contemporary, what does? If his definition of “contemporary” means that the historical documents must have been written during the lifetime of Christ, then we really have no reason to believe that many historical figures, from Plato to Caesar to Homer to Muhammad, never existed. His argument, in that case, is so over-stated as to lose its credulity to anyone outside of the atheist choir to which he is preaching.

Fourth, the unprinted assumptions of these objectors need to be examined as well. Behind these objections lie assumptions regarding the form and timeliness of methods of communication in the 1st century, the nature of historical documentation in ancient times, standards of historical verification, and so on. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of these assumptions, once brought to light, could easily be dismissed as either presumptuously arbitrary or as seeking to impose upon ancient historians anachronistic principles of communication and documentation.

Finally, regarding the over-long list of historians, it seems difficult to prove that “they would have noticed.” This is mere conjecture, plain and simple. How does one go about proving or disproving a statement like this? The whole argument rests on an unverifiable opinion about what 1st century historians would or wouldn’t have noticed. (Quickly, dealing with the “Beatles analogy,” the greatest point of dis-analogy between Christ and the Beatles is, of course, the lack of television and radio in the 1st century. How long would it have taken for Beatle-mania to reach America without the use of these modern forms of communication? I’m inclined to think we might never have heard of them, much less heard them, but any answer given would be no less conjectural than the argument given by the objecting authors.)

Keep in mind that Jesus’ ministry lasted a brief 3 years. Isn’t it at least equally as reasonable to argue that it would have taken some time for the story of Christ to spread through the use of 1st century “grassroots” means of communication? And isn’t this exactly what history reveals in the gradual, progressive spread of Christianity from Jerusalem throughout the region, the empire and eventually the world?

Hope that's at least a little helpful...

 

[sotzo]

First, this issue has been dealt with quite comprehensively. The Roman Catholic scholar, John Meier, wrote what is probably one of the most well-respected "person of Jesus" works ever, A Marginal Jew. Meier's erudition is simply stunning. The footnotes of A Marginal Jew are overflowing with supporting information and show his mastery of the massive literature on Jesus. He is well respected because he does a fairly objective job in evaluating what is allowable as independent evidence for the existence / life of Jesus. In my humble opinion, he is a bit too conservative on what he will permit as independent, extra-biblical attestation to Jesus. For example, he does not deem Tacitus to be an independent source. With that in mind, here is what Meier says about what we can reasonably expect as far as source material for Jesus' life:

"From the viewpoint of the Jewish and pagan literature of the century following Jesus, the Nazarene was at most a "blip" on the radar screen. It is remarkable that the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus mentions Jesus at all...Tacitus is briefer still. As hard as it is for the devout Christian to accept, the fact is that Jesus was simply insignificant to national and world history as seen through the eyes of Jewish and pagan historians of the 1st and early 2nd centuries. If he was seen at all, it was at the periphery of their vision.

When we look for statements about Jesus from noncanonical writings of the 1st or 2nd century, we are at first disappointed by the lack of references. We have to remember that Jews and pagans of this period, if they were at all aware of a new religious phenomenon on the horizon, would be more aware of the nascent group called Christianity than of its putative founder Jesus...this simply reminds us that Jesus was a marginal Jew leading a marginal movement in a marginal province of a vast Roman Empire."

Secondly, (and this has been addressed in posts previous to mine), skeptics automatically dismiss the Gospels as unreliable or unable to communicate true history because they are, well, in the Bible. While I understand the question "is the Bible reliable to communicate facts about Jesus' life?" necessarily entails not including the Bible in an evaluation of itself, the question "what can we know about Jesus?" does not require such action. Otherwise, to be fair, all bets are off on all sources, separately considered, until independent attestation is found elswhere.

Third, to your specific question "Is history on our side?", I take you to mean, "Does extra-biblical history support the claims of the Gospels as to Jesus' life details?", I would suggest it depends on what you mean by "support". When looking for extra-biblical sources of Jesus' life, one will search in vain for the type /amount of attestation that may accompany a modern-day prophet or religious leader. But why would we apply such criteria to any first century figure? Answer is that we wouldn't. That being the case, there is a tiny amount of extra-biblical evidence (Josephus' interpolated passage, Tacitus) and the Bible itself, which for the reason stated above, should not be automatically tossed out as pure kerygma with no view to accurate history.