In this debate, my opponent has attempted to show that there is no real evidence to support the historicity of Jesus. This approach was three fold. He dealt with the Tacitus passage, the Josephus passage, and the gospels. Since in this debate I am not utilizing the gospels in my defense of the claim that there is evidence for the historicity of Jesus, any mention of the gospels is simply impertinent. My case does not involve appealing to the gospels at all.
My opponent at the beginning of the second round attempted to show that the Tacitus passage should not be viewed as historical evidence for the historicity of Jesus. He did so by providing several arguments. I addressed these arguments in my last post and in so doing not only showed his arguments to be unpersuasive, but furnished good reasons for thinking that the Tacitus passage should be viewed as historical evidence for the historicity of Jesus.
So what has my opponent to say about these points I made?
He does two things.
1. He quotes a statement from Carrier, the man who demonstrated that one of his very own arguments against Tacitus, i.e. that Tacitus was wrong in labeling Pilate a procurator, was unpersuasive!
2. He says
"there are both secular and theist scholars who believe the passage is genuine....there are also both who believe it entirely worthless. Professor R. T. France (New Testament scholar and Anglican cleric) concludes that "the Tacitus passage is at best just Tacitus repeating what he has heard through Christians."
To 1.
1a. The quote from Carrier is incomplete. The "this" at the beginning of the quote refers to something Carrier has been writing about but is not quoted. This is the quote:
"This makes the possibility of interpolation substantially more credible. This would also explain why no one else mentions this event (for centuries), and no other historians of Nero’s reign (like Pliny the Elder) were ever quoted or had their histories preserved (as we would normally expect if they had mentioned Christ or Christians–which fact supports the conclusion that they didn’t, which then entails Tacitus didn’t, unless he was repeating what was by then a Christian legend about the fire at Rome, about a persecution that never actually happened, and not anything actually recorded by historians contemporary with the fire)."
2a. Carrier says that no one else mentions Jesus or His death for centuries. This is simply false and raises the question as to why Carrier would even say something so demonstrably false.
3a. Even if we accept it as a fact that no other historian of Nero's reign was ever quoted or had their histories preserved, this does not demonstrate that Tacitus' reference is completely fictitious. That there are accounts that contain references to persons or events not found in works contemporaneous to them that are nevertheless regarded as reliable sources for historical information for said persons and events would argue against the notion that an account is totally unreliable if it is not corroborated by contemporaneous historians.
To 2.
I have never ventured to claim that there are not both theist and atheist scholars who view the passage as worthless. Secondly, highlighting the fact that an Anglican cleric and historian thinks the passage is worthless to help support your case is like me highlighting the fact that a handful of scientists think that the earth was created in six literal 24 hour periods. Would anyone see this as evidence that the earth was actually formed in six literal 24 hour days? The fact that a few historians think Tacitus to be worthless while the vast majority of them, whether they be theist or atheist, view it as reliable seems only to support my case. Thirdly, I addressed the notion which France propagates, i.e. that Tacitus is just relaying stuff he heard from Christians, but my opponent was conspicuously silent when it came to the points I made and does not even address them.
My opponent, in response to my comments on his argument about the word "procurator", simply says that he found it "interesting".
My opponent did not even respond to my rebuttal of his argument about Tacitus' usage of the religious title "Christ".
My opponent did not even respond to my rebuttal of his argument that Tacitus was simply relaying hearsay.
My opponent did not even respond to my rebuttal of his argument that the passage may have been a "pious fraud".
My opponent did quote Carrier, who basically said that Tacitus was just probably giving an account of stuff he heard from Christians. So basically my opponent instead of actually responding to my rebuttal of this argument I gave, just simply restates the argument, using Carrier's quote.
Regarding Tacitus:
In light of my opponent saying that one of the rebuttals I made was "interesting" and in light of the fact that he did not even address the other rebuttals I made, and in light of him simply restating an argument I responded to without actually engaging it, it seems to me that my opponent has failed to even deal seriously with the material I have offered for consideration.
Now to Josephus.
My opponent says this regarding the aforementioned Josephan core:
.....there's no agreement on which words are fraudulent or not.
This is demonstrably false.
Historian James Dunn states that the works of Josephus include two separate references to Jesus and although there are some interpolations in the
Testimonium, there is "broad consensus" among scholars regarding the nature of an authentic reference to Jesus in the
Testimonium and what the passage would look like without the interpolation. (Dunn, James (2003).
Jesus remembered.
ISBN0-8028-3931-2). Based on this reconstruction, it is likely the original passage read: (Joel B. Green "Crucifixion" in the
The Cambridge Companion to Jesusedited by Markus N. A. Bockmuehl 2001
ISBN 0-521-79678-4 page 89)
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
Even worse...the passage is ignored by every christian apologist/leader/advocate until the fourth century..... It's almost inconceivable that early church apologist Origen, who spent most of his life defending christianity and quoted Josephus extensively would never mention a passage that confirms every important point of Jesus's life...it's as if this passage simply doesn't exist in Origen's copy of Antiquities.
This rejoinder seems flimsy at best. Even conceding that it is true that no apologist or church leader mentions Josephus until the fourth century, this in no way necessitates we conclude that the Josephan passage is an unreliable historical source of information for the historicity of Jesus. The simple fact of the matter is that the
Antiquities was written at the end of the first century and is referenced in the fourth. During the second and third centuries, Christian apologists would not have been needing to provide evidence that Jesus lived by appealing to extra-biblical accounts, for their detractors were not arguing that Jesus never lived, but rather, they would have been primarily promoting some form of gnosticism. Even with just a cursory examination of Origen's written work, you will find that it is not concerned primarily with Jesus' existence as a person of history, for this was not even in debate at the time, but rather, refutations of gnosticism. In light of this, it is not at all surprising that men like Origen spent their time addressing the controversial topics of their day, which simply would not have required them to make mention of extra biblical accounts of Jesus' life and death.
My opponent then says:
This is all a bit beside the point though...scholars who want to talk about a historical Jesus need to believe in these passages because without them, there simply isn't any reference to a Jesus outside of the bible.
And even if this were true, ironically, it is beside the point. Either Tacitus and Josephus are reliable sources for the historicity of Jesus or they are not. The desires or wants or wishes of some historians that they be authentic and reliable is irrelevant. If my opponent is here again bringing up the argument that there is some sort of confirmation bias, I can happily refer him back to my rejoinder to that argument in my previous post which he did not even address.
Speaking of what my opponent has not addressed, he addressed none of my rejoinders to his arguments against Josephus' reliability.
From everything that has transpired during this debate, from my opponent's not addressing my arguments and evidence, to his simply restating arguments I addressed, it seems to me that he has failed to show that Tacitus and Josephus are unreliable extra-biblical sources for the historicity of Jesus.
I will leave you with some quotes of my own.
Michael Grant (a
classicist) states that "In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." Michael Grant (January 2004).
Jesus. Orion. p. 200.
ISBN978-1-898799-88-7.
"There are those who argue that Jesus is a figment of the Church’s imagination, that there never was a Jesus at all. I have to say that I do not know any respectable critical scholar who says that any more." Richard A. Burridge; Graham Gould (2004).
Jesus Now and Then. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 34.
ISBN978-0-8028-0977-3.
Of "baptism and crucifixion", these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent". James D. G. Dunn (2003).
Jesus Remembered. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 339.
ISBN978-0-8028-3931-2.
"That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus ... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact." John Dominic Crossan (1994).
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography. HarperCollins. p. 45.
ISBN978-0-06-061662-5.
"[F]arfetched theories that Jesus' existence was a Christian invention are highly implausible." Markus Bockmuehl (8 November 2001).
The Cambridge Companion to Jesus. Cambridge University Press. pp. 123–124.
ISBN 978-0-521-79678-1.
Robert E. Van Voorst, referring to G.A. Wells: "The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted" Robert E. Van Voorst (2000).
Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5.