Talk:Historicity of Jesus/Archive 19

Greco Roman Sources

I am not an expert on this issue at all, but while reading this over I was struck by what seems to be the logical irrelevancy of some of these sources. Also, I would like to suggest that as potentially more neutral observers writing from outside the early Christian church, we should lead with their evidence.

The majority of these sources simply say that there were Christians in a certain place at a certain time, or that the Christians believed in some guy called Christ. This article is hardly disputing the existence of Christianity at that time, or that they probably said Christ was a real person. As such it seems to me that accounts limited only to statements to this effect are nothing more than irrelevant to the issue. In particular I found the following sections to be completely pointless:

• Pliny the Younger - Unless their is some evidence to the effect that he had sources which we do not have about the intents of Christ which would lead him to write something that seems so removed from the actual historical record to us, we must consider what he said hearsay, and not evidence of anything but his slanderous intent.

• Suetonius - Discussing some character who has a common name similar to that of Christ twenty years after Jesus' alleged death is not meaningful evidence at all, unless we are suggesting that the crucifixion did not happen and that Jesus continued to travel around until the 50s AD. I label this blatantly irrelevant however.

• Thallus - This supposed citation adds nothing, unless we are taking it as evidence of the alleged miracles surrounding Christs death. This is beyond the scope of this article.

• Lucian - Again wrote about the nature of early Christian beliefs, irrelevant to historicity of Jesus.

• Celsus - Slanders Jesus, relevant?

And some suggestions for more convincing analysis of the evidence (I would do this, but again I have no expertise here at all):

• Josephus - This is the only non church source who has anything meaningful to say about Jesus and wrote at about the same time. This is actually the only piece of real evidence in the whole article as far as I can tell, as everything else is really vague, or written by Christians. Of course, that does not mean that analyzing these other texts is not an important point, but just that this is surely the strongest piece of evidence. I appreciate that some attempt has been made to analyze this well, but I think it should be a more prominent piece of evidence, granted even more analysis.

• Tacitus - This is the second best piece of evidence if the line about Jesus was not forged. I would like to see more discussion here about the plausibility of some source that Tacitus had access to discussing the execution of Jesus. Even if the capital hadnt burned down would this have been plausible? Did the central Roman bureaucracy keep records of the names of all common criminals executed in every province for 85 years? (I am a bit skeptical)

Syagru1s (talk) 22:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I would like to agree. I was pointed to this article by someone claiming that there was no debate about the historical Jesus's existence. The tone of this article does not support that claim whatsoever. The religious texts need to be toned down to their historical relevance since they are clearly biased works. The fact that none of the works that are non-religious can draw upon any non-religious sources makes the case incredibly muddled and not at all uncontroversial. marnues (talk) 19:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a common problem with the Pro Historical Jesus side. The scholars claim there are mountains of evidence but when you look at the arguments you see the same things over and over again: Paul, Gospels, Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and Suetonius with the occasional desperate references to Thallus (third hand), Lucian, and Celsus. We know from Bishop Irenaeus that c180 CE that for his sect of Christianity the story of Jesus was pretty much set but even this early to the supposed events there are problems with the first Church father to extensively quote from what we consider the canon Gospels. In Against Heresies, Book 2 chapter 24 paragraph 5 Bishop Irenaeus argues that Jesus was at least 45 ("already passed the age of forty, without having as yet reached his fiftieth year, yet is not far from this latter period") and possibly over 50 years old when he died ("Chap. XXII.--The Thirty Aeons Are Not Typified By The Fact That Christ Was Baptized In His Thirtieth Year: He Did Not Suffer In The Twelfth Month After His Baptism, But Was More Than Fifty Years Old When He Died."). This creates insurmountable problems with the traditional born c4 BC (Death of Herod), baptized c29 CE (around 30 years of age), crucified some time before c36 CE (Pontius Pilate removed as rule of the region) timeline normally given to Jesus. To get Jesus to the bare minimum age Bishop Irenaeus implies takes you to c42 CE some 6 years after Pontius Pilate was ruler and to get the age expressly stated by the chapter's title (Was More Than Fifty Years Old When He Died) gets you to c47 CE at the earliest. As Joseph Wheless pointed out something is way wrong here; either the Gospels Bishop Irenaeus quoted from were way different from ours (Wheless' position as Bishop Irenaeus also said 'the Gospel and all the elders testified' to these statements) or the bishop didn't know his history well enough to spot the problems with his statements. As for 'the usual suspects' Pauls give us nothing we can really use as far as time markers, we are not sure when the Gospel were written (1st or early 2nd century), Josephus has been tampered with so we are not sure what exactly he did say, we have no idea where Tacitus got his information from, and Suetonius is iffy.--BruceGrubb (talk) 20:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Tacitus section

This section is problematic:

Others would say it tells us only what the Christians in the year 116 believed, and is not therefore an independent confirmation of the Gospel reports. For example, historian Richard Carrier writes "it is inconceivable that there were any records of Jesus for Tacitus to consult in Rome (for many reasons, not the least of which being that Rome's capitol had burned to the ground more than once in the interim), and even less conceivable that he would have dug through them even if they existed … It would simply be too easy to just ask a Christian--or a colleague who had done so … there can be no doubt that what Pliny discovered from Christians he had interrogated was passed on to Tacitus."

The problem is it's just speculation. No one knows where Tacitus got his information. If we have one historian's speculation shouldn't we have others? Or isn't it better to just let the passage speak for itself and say whether historians think Tacitus actually wrote it. All we do know from it is that Tacitus believed Jesus was real and not a myth. Roy Brumback (talk) 06:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not think "letting the passage speak for itself" is as nearly as important as scholarly analysis. That said, Carrier isn't a scholar, but a popular internet atheist. I would support removing the Carrier information IF we find "other historian's speculations" to replace it with. More than one would be preferable. I can dig out my Meier book which goes over the sources.-Andrew c ^[talk] 14:57, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

But general speculation is not analysis, it's just saying "maybe he got it from here". If we start adding one or two historian's general speculations, why not them all? Is there any majority opinion to the issue or just a bunch of different opinions from different historians, which probably should not be added, especially in this article, although they might go in the general Tacitus on Jesus article, but even there you're opening up a hornets nest of contradictory opinions backed up by nothing but sheer speculation with no real evidence behind any opinion. Roy Brumback (talk) 19:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I would also point out that one's religious orientation has absolutely bearing on the matter. There are atheists that believe Jesus was historical and there are Christians who say the Jesus of the Bible is a total myth and that the real Jesus has effectively been lost to us. Furthermore Carrier may not have his PHD yet but he has been published in several peer reviewed publications: German Studies Review, Biology & Philosophy, and Journal of Higher Criticism. This makes him a scholar by the standards of wikipedia--deal with it.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Why so rude? Deal? Deal with this. I never said he wasn't a scholar, I said simply putting in people's speculations isn't a good idea, because they are just that, speculations. I don't think speculations about Tacitus getting his info from official government sources should be in there either, as it's just another hypothesis with no evidence for it. As I said before, we don't know where Tacitus got his info. And what are you talking about when you say people's religion has a bearing on the matter? What matter, Tacitus's writing? People's personal beliefs have no bearing on the truth of their assertions, and to claim otherwise is to use the appeal to motive. Roy Brumback (talk) 16:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You may have not but Andrew c did state quite clearly "Carrier isn't a scholar, but a popular internet atheist". The first can be quickly disproved via a quick use of google and other search engines and the second is basically an Ad hominem attack which has no merit (and I am quite tired of both sides using these kinds of attacks--even some of the professionals involved do it and they of all people should know better). As for scholarly "speculations" or "opinions" go when it comes to the social (aka soft) sciences that many times sadly is all you have to work with. Even worst is the one profession best suited to sorting this out, Historical Anthropology, is totally absent. Carrier is one of the few who has tried to bring Historical Anthropology into the whole arguments but his efforts remind me of the early works of Dunnel and Binford when they were still groping their way through forming some guidelines for the new sub field some 30 years ago--interesting but needs a lot of work.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Ehrman on Pliny

I removed the section quoting Ehrman on Pliny again, because its clearly Ehrman talking about what knowledge of the historical Jesus one can get from Pliny's passage, not whether the passage has bearing on the historicity of Jesus, which is the issue of this page. Does Ehrman say anything about Pliny's passage relating to Jesus' existence, not it relating to who he really was, which is the "historical Jesus" issue he seems to be speaking about in the quote, which would make it not relevant to this page. Roy Brumback (talk) 19:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I really appreciate your edit warring. It's fine and dandy to make bold edits, but if someone in good faith reverts a bold edit (such as blanking long standing, well-sourced content) it is disruptive to re-do the edit under dispute. See WP:BRD. It is hard to dialog in good faith on the talk page when the other party is actively edit warring in the article.

Your comment Sorry but this passage is clearly about what info on historical Jesus that section provides, not whether is has bearing on issue of existence. seems to show ignorance of what scholars mean by "historicity". If scholarly analysis of sources excluded, we are simply presenting original research. We need scholars to say that "sources x, y, and z establish Jesus' historicity because of reasons a, b, and c." Just listing the sources by themselves is drawing the unverifiable conclusion that these sources "speak for themselves" in establishing Jesus' historicity (violations of WP:V and WP:RS). In conclusion, I think we have different scopes in regards to what this article should be about, and we should discuss that before further editing warring or blanking of material. I ask you kindly to restore the longstanding content while it is currently under discussion as a sign of dialog and good faith. -Andrew c ^[talk] 00:31, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hold on man, calm down. I'm not trying to edit war with you Andrew, and that was not long established content. I don't really get what you think of as historicity. I think it means the veracity of a historical claim. Now I suppose that could include everything Jesus was claimed to do, but those issues as to what Jesus "really" did are taken up on the Historical Jesus page. There is no reason to add them to here, as there would be no reason for two pages, one on general historicity and one on many specific historicities, which is what the Historical Jesus page really is, discussing all the individual claims about Jesus and their veracity, so the Ehrman quote in my opinion would belong on Historical Jesus page and not this one, as the intro to this page actually says its about Jesus' existence. Just wondering, do you have that book? Is Ehrman in any way talking about whether Jesus existed or not in reference to the Pliny quote, as it seems to me he's talking about using Pliny to get details of Jesus' life, not simply as evidence for Jesus' existence. Roy Brumback (talk) 08:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

If I may, I just wanted to add a small comment. Pliny just says that Christians worship Christ (as god). This says absolutely nothing about historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, and no Jesus at all, in fact. So already Ehrman projects his understanding into the text of Pliny when saying "... doesn't give us any information about Jesus, only that he was worshipped as divine by his followers". Such obvious mistakes are so frequent by pro-historicity people that I just do not know what to say to this. Roy Brumback created another instance in the Tacitus paragraph above when saying "... All we do know from it is that Tacitus believed Jesus was real and not a myth...." Tacitus says no word about Jesus but Roy translates Tacitus' Christ in such a way. (Btw to say that "Tacitus believed Jesus was real and not a myth" looks like we should assume that this question had any sense for Tacitus.) In my opinion, the wiki-article should make explicitly clear that Pliny can be only used as evidence for existence of a Christ cult and has thus no relevance to the question of historicity of Jesus of Nazareth (nor "his followers" of Ehrman). But if we do not agree even on such an obvious point what consensus can we achieve?Jelamkorj (talk) 19:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It's clear that Christians called Christ Jesus Christ long before Tacitus wrote his works, so when Tacitus refers to the Christ who was killed by Pontius Pilate and founded Christianity, do you actually think he's talking about someone else besides Jesus? Roy Brumback (talk) 05:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not think that Tacitus "is talking about someone else besides Jesus". What I learn from the text of Tacitus (assuming it is authentic) is that from somewhere he got information that the name Christians (of a strange religious sect from Tacitus' point of view) originates with some Christ who was long ago executed under Pontius Pilate. I do not know how detailed this information was, so I do not know if Tacitus knew that Christians also called their Christ "Jesus". I also have no reasons to assume that Tacitus would be, in fact, interested and would have any reason to do "an independent research" to verify the factuality of such an execution-event or so. But I do not intend to argue and change the main wiki-text somehow, though I surely think it would need a thorough reworking.Jelamkorj (talk) 13:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Roy, I feel it was really Jesus the Messiah that was the original term. Jesus Christ would have only have been the term once the stories crossed the linguistic barrier from Aramaic to Greek. I feel this occurred only after the Pauline epistles, so that Tacitus referring to Chrestus who was executed under Pilate, if it is a genuine quote, is retrospective. John D. Croft (talk) 05:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that there were other 'Christs' around both before and after the Biblical Christ supposedly lived. Mead said there was one c100 BCE, when read in context Josephus'famoud second passage seems to be talking about Jesus, son of Damneus, regarded as the Christ, who after the death of his brother James was made high priest (totally different from the Jesus of the Bible), and there were others would be Christs who were stoned or crucified. Christianity then as now wasn't a monolithic religion with one belief but many beliefs some totally at odds with what is now the mainstream.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Josephus doesn't say son of Damneus, and pretty much no one buys the arguments that that's who he's talking about there. Almost all scholars conclude he's talking about Jesus and James the Just there. And of course Tacitus clearly isn't talking about any of the others who people thought might be the messiah, he's obviously referring to the "Christ" who the Christians follow, who they clearly claimed to be Jesus, who Tacitus agrees with in saying he was killed by Pilate and was indeed the founder of their religion. And there is no evidence anyone but Jesus was ever called Christ, that is there is no evidence any other Jewish messianic claimant was ever called the messiah or the anointed by Greek speaking people, using their work for anointed, Christ, so there is no reason whatsoever to believe Tacitus is referring to anyone except Jesus. Scholars never even really debate that as they consider the issue pretty much settled. All they do debate is whether Tacitus simply is repeating what some Christians told people or had evidence from a non Christian source, like a record or something, but as I said above, there is no way to know where he got it, all we can do is hypothesize. What we do know from Tacitus is that he clearly believed Jesus had been a real person.Roy Brumback (talk) 14:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but Josephus does say son of Damneus as proved by this quote and link: "Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest."Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus. When the often quoted passage is read in context it is clear that the "brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" refers to Jesus, the son of Damneus who as later made High Priest. Paul himself warned "For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him." (KJV 2 Corinthians 11:4) Paul acknowledged even his own time there were other Jesus, other Gospels, and other 'spirits' that were not as we would say the 'real deal'. As for Tacitus believing anything about "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus" we don't really know from the passage. He is more interested in talking about how Nero was dealing with the rumors that he set the fire and may have not checked on the validly on the stories of where this Christian sect got their name from.

This all assumes that the passage is real as Tertullian, Lactantius, Eusebius, and Augustine of Hippo when discussing Christian persecution by Nero don't use it. Sulpicius Severus who does quote the passage doesn't tell us he got us from Tacitus which is strange as you would think he would tell us where he got it from. At best it just tells us that by c115 one Christian sect believed their founder died at the hands of Pontius Pilatus--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but he's talking about a different Jesus, as it clearly reads like he's talking about someone else than the Jesus he was talking about before, as he identifies him differently, which is what most scholars conclude. He may or may not have checked, that's right, we don't have any way to know. That's my point. You argue it only proves Christians told it to him, but that's only true if he got it from a Christian source, which as I said we have no way of knowing, so it doesn't prove that as that's just circular reasoning. Who knows why Severus didn't provide a cite. Most ancient authors didn't. And people not quoting Tacitus is an argument from silence. The section proves Tacitus held Jesus to be real at any rate, no matter how important he deemed that fact, and his weight as a historian certainly helps bolster the credibility of his statements of historical fact, although it doesn't prove them. Back to the article, do you think we should have unprovable speculations about Tacitus' source or just the quoted section and the basic scholarly consensus as to whether he wrote it or not and what it proves? Roy Brumback (talk) 05:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a more modern example will show you what I mean. "One night in the late 1930s, a group of dissatisfied native men gathered in secret and drank large quantities of kava, hoping to receive a message from the spirit world. And they did: An ethereal white-clad white man named John Frum appeared to them, urging that they throw away their money, stop attending Christian churches and return to their ancient ways.

Inspired by this vision, the men threw their money into the sea and held huge feasts to honor John Frum and recruit converts. The colonial authorities were alarmed, and sent the cult's leaders to prison in 1941, but still the Frum religion spread.

Lo and behold, a year later, legions of men dressed in white appeared in the islands. They belonged to the U.S. Navy. They came aboard giant ships and inside huge metal birds and brought wonderful things, including chocolate, cigarettes and Coca-Cola. Many islanders concluded that their prayers to John Frum had been answered." (Carlson, Peter, "Religion That Grew From a Lot of Brew" Washington Post January 31, 2006) Does this mean Peter Carlson believes that John Frum really existed? No as he is actually quoting from Paul Raffaele. Does that mean Paul Raffaele believed this story? Even his "In John They Trust" article in the February 2006 issue of Smithsonian is unclear as he is simply reporting on the natives belief and a little about how in 1942 the US tried to (and failed to) convince the natives they were not connected to John Frum. In fact, no written reference to John Frum appears before 1940 despite a 50% literacy rate. If there was ever textbook example of how the JMers could be correct it is in the whole John Frum cult situation.--216.31.14.232 (talk) 18:54, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Hardly. Is there anywhere in that report of that story where he says Frum was a man who was killed in such and such a manner by a government official. Tacitus doesn't say anything about what Christians believe, except that they follow a movement founded by Christ, who he then clearly says was put to death by the government, not that they had a vision of Christ who then said and did x y and z. Same with Josephus, as he is talking about the death of an actual man, Jesus' brother. Pretty weak. Roy Brumback (talk) 03:23, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Of course there is no execution of John Frum in the myth because the society involved is not that of ancient Rome; expecting an 1 to 1 match up between John Frum myth of today and of the Jesus story of 1 CE Rome is ridiculous especially when one is looking for similarities and general patterns and NOT exact matches. The closest anyone can get to a 'historical' (using the term very loosely) John Frum is some islander named Manehivi using that name who was tied to a tree for a day and then thrown into exile in 1940. After news of Pearl Harbor hit the island Manehivi suddenly stopped being John Frum and the "real" one was 'out there some where'. In fact, no evidence for the John Frum religion before 1940 can be found even though the religion itself states it was started thanks to a vision some 10 years earlier. Many of the things JMers see regarding Jesus can be seen in John Frum and unlike the Christians the John Frum followers have things to back up their faith including photographs of John Frum (never mind that few photos match).--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The big difference is that there is no actual report of a John Frum other than what they said they saw in visions, whereas Tacitus clearly says Jesus was real and really killed by a real historical person who certainly existed. He doesn't say anything about Christian visions or that he may or may not have existed, as our historians say about John Frum roughly the same period of time away from the first reports of Frum worship. We don't know if Frum was ever real, but Tacitus clearly seems to think Jesus was. Any thoughts on the actual article? Roy Brumback (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Again there is nothing "clear" about what Tacitus knows about 'Christus'. Tacitus also states that they "were hated for their abominations", "called Christians by the populace, and "in immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind" Are we also to take these comments as accurate too?--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, mostly. No one doubts the Christians were hated for what people considered abominations (not worshipping the emperor, Zeus ect...), that they were called Christians, they many of them were convicted and killed by Nero and that people accused them of hating mankind, as Paul condems much of Roman society in his letter to the Romans, written years before the fire and subsequent persecution. Tacitus clearly seems to not like Christianity, but that is his opinion, not him making a statement of historical fact. Again, any thoughts on the article and whether unsupported speculation on Tacitus' source should be included?Roy Brumback (talk) 16:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Roy, with all respect there is nothing proving any of this. Rome was surprising tolerate of other religions; they even allowed exemptions to the Jews regarding emperor worship. Also, Zeus was a Greek not a Roman god (his Roman equivalent was Jupiter). Furthermore, there is nothing in the passage to truly indicate what Tacitus personally thought of Christians--rather it seems to be that he is simply repeating what he had heard. Never mind that Paul was not the only person condemning many aspects of 1st century Roman society--he had plenty of company as there was plenty that was wrong. The horrific games of the Colosseum (which actually got worst under Christian Emperors) was a major concern with many writers; one of them even described it as a kind of addiction where people brought to it would be so affected 'that it would leave him no peace until he returned; not being dragged as before but as their leader bringing more to be corrupted by the savagery within.' There were issues regarding the slave trade, the quality of Emperors, and general state of Roman society. So Paul was not unique in that regard.--BruceGrubb (talk) 04:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

It's clear in Pliny's letter he tortured the Christian women for joining an illegal group and refusing to offer worship to the emperor, so Rome's not as tolerant as you would say, especially regarding Christians. I know Zeus was a Greek god, but he was often conflated with Jupiter, and you were certainly allowed, even praised for worshipping him. I was just giving an example, as there were plenty of Zeus worshippers in imperial Rome. Calling something a mischievous superstition is a pretty negative opinion if you ask me. It doens't seem like he is just repeating what he heard, he's writing statements of historical fact and doesn't seem to say in any way how or where he got his info, which has been my point all along, we don't know and we have no way of knowing so why put in speculations we have no way of proving or disproving. The Christian emperors banned the death games and largely replaced them with races and such, so I don't know what's your talking about there. And are you arguing other people criticized Roman society so Christian criticism wouldn't be labeled hatred of mankind. That doesn't follow. Again man, WHAT ARE YOUR OPINIONS ABOUT WHETHER TO PUT IN UNSUPPORTED UNPROVABLE SPECULATIONS ABOUT TACITUS' SOURCES, or are you just looking for a debate buddy? Roy Brumback (talk) 01:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say Roman were entirely tolerant of other religions just that they were surprisingly tolerant. As you mention Christians were punished for breaking Roman law. Furthermore if you look into the 1980's you will see a modern example of this kind of hearsay in the supposed Satanic Cult outbreak; later research has shown that these groups did NOT even exist and the whole thing was a fear mongering campaign. Gordon Stein is one of those who support the idea that Tacitus was just repeating what he heard so is is NOT as you claim "unsupported unprovable speculation". In History Channel's The True Story of Roman Arena Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill University of Reading stated "Indeed their (ie Christian Emperors) use of violence and cruelty to sustain their power is...seems even more unpleasant than that of their pagan predecessors". Later on it is stated "Indeed, under the Christian Emperors more crimes were punishable by death in the Arena than ever before." Supporting evidence for these statements can also be found through Humphres and a little historical research. Only after a monk named Telemachus was torn apart by the spectating mob when he tried to interfere did Honorius end the gladiator games in 407 CE though the animal games continued until 523 CE when the whole infrastructure needed to keep the Colosseum going totally fell apart.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Article belittles truth!

" Mark was written by Mark, a disciple of Simon Peter, who was one of the Twelve "

This is an understatement in the article. It is firmly held in christianity, that Mark was the very 16 year old boy described in the scripture, who saw Jesus being arrested and who ran away naked after soldiers grabbed his robes.

That means Marcus was a direct eyewitness to the crucial last events of Jesus, not just a biographer who worked on second hand hearsay. This way the testimony of Mark is almost equally valuable to that of Apostles John and Matthew and stands a bit above Luke's, who was an indirect chronicler, being the personal physician of Paul. 91.83.19.62 (talk) 11:57, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

And your proof is...?PiCo (talk) 11:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

This is the key problem here. There are many claims about the Gospels but when it comes to what we would consider evidence there is little to support they are the eyewitness accounts they are claimed to being. In fact, if anything there is plenty to suggest they are not.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Once again, one talks about proof, and the need for it without the historical context. The Proof, was the documents written by Josephus, neither Christian nor Jewish nor a palistenion. He was a Roman, with little interest in reporting anything but the facts. Very little epistomological information exists as searchable or retrieveable on the web, because most of the researchers view the web as some glorified version of the Enquirer. In scolarly circles of people who have studied the epsitomology find that almost all of the events of the gospels, despite the enourmous efforts to discredit them ( and you think the moon landing hoax people have it wrong, the biblical detractors have been working on it for thousands of years ), have well documented sources amoung the romans and greek works. There is *NOTHING*, and I mean absolutly nothing in the writings of Jospehus that contracdicts the gospels. I double dare you to find at lest ONE instance, just ONE instance where this is not true. ( and by the way, web research is going to be impossible for this, just so you know ). --76.20.16.118 (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

We don't need to prove that things are true, only to verify that somebody has notably claimed truth. To back up your statement that Mark is the boy mentioned, it would suffice to quote some reference material on that subject. Since this article is specifically about historicity, it would be good if the references were in the same context, obviously, so as to avoid original research. User:PiCo's comment is basically valid, but with a different phrasing; we don't need your proof, we need somebody else's. --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 11:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A Good Idea

I would like to revisit the debate about the info box adding that Jesus thought the golden rule was a good idea. --76.20.16.118 (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

nice article

This article and many of the others in the jesus section are very neutral and about the right amount of skeptical 63.171.230.113 (talk) 18:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)