Caesar wrote extensively about Jesus.... *reconstruction*

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Caesar wrote extensively about Jesus.... *reconstruction*

TwilightOfTheIdolsTwilightOfTheIdols's picture
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So, I just had a small argument with a Christian who made the above claim. However, when I asked for him to provide at least one reference to this fact, he said "look it up, I'm not your research assistant". And so, of course, I am looking it up, and a cursory internet search has failed to reveal even one such claim.

For the record, I do think that he just full of shit and repeating something he was told but never actually read himself. I am curious, however, if anyone has come across this claim before and can provide some academic documentation on its lunacy.
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Submitted by TwilightOfTheIdols on December 14, 2007 - 7:10pm. login or register to post comments

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This Christian is obviously

This Christian is obviously confusing many different aspects of historical Jesus research. He probably heard from somewhere of pagan authors like Tacitus and Seutonius (erroneously claimed to be evidence for the historical Jesus, especially by those who should know better), and assumed that if they wrote about him, then obviously Caesar myst have - he is flawed in his conclusions (Julius Caesar would have been dead to write anything on Jesus, and Caesar Agustus never wrote anything as far as I'm concerned, and none of the later Caesar's wrote substantially save perhaps Marcus Aurelius, but he was far too late, and he wrote only the Meditations, a Stoic philosophical writing. Justinian also wrote a discourseon the Christians, but again far too late to be considered historical attestation. Perhaps he is confusing Seutonius' Lives of the Twelve Caesar's as a writing of the Caesars? You're correct either way, he certainly is full of shit.

Please help me get my resources so I can continue to historically show the inadequacies of the Bible and early Christians.

My wish list.
December 14, 2007 - 7:40pm login or register to post comments

ThandarrSilver Member
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Julian the Apostate was a Caesar


Your Christian friend may be inadvertently right. One of the greatest pagan writers on Christianity was the Emperor Julian, also known as Julian the Philosopher or Julian the Apostate. He was a "Caesar," having been appointed Caesar of the West to becoming Emperor. He was the last pagan emperor and was killed in battle in 363, perhaps by a Christian traitor to the Empire. Had he lived and ruled long enough, this site today might be mostly devoted to debunking Paganism, not the extinct Christian cult.

I don't think your Christian friend will like what "Caesar" said about Jesus, though. He was anti-Christian. Just one example:

"Jesus, who won over the least worthy of you, has been known by name for but little more than three hundred years: and during his lifetime he accomplished nothing worth hearing of, unless anyone thinks that to heal crooked and blind men and to exorcise those who were possessed by evil demons in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany can be classed as a mighty achievement."

Against the Galilleans [Christians]. http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_galileans_1_text.htm

Thandarr

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December 14, 2007 - 11:05pm login or register to post comments

TwilightOfTheIdolsTwilightOfTheIdols's picture
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Interesting, however I


Interesting, however I hardly think something written some three and a half centuries later would account for "evidence of a historical jesus". I could say all of the good or bad things you'd like about Paul Bunyon, but would that really count as evidence of his existence?

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Through the clouds
Through the lies
You'll never see what's never been
At the passing of life and the coming of death
Pass not through it's gates, but into the dark
December 15, 2007 - 12:12am login or register to post comments

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J.R.R. Tolkien wrote much

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote much about the hobbits. That made them no more real than Jesus.

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December 15, 2007 - 12:19am login or register to post comments

Later, AdamTM
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AdamTM

AdamTM wrote:

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J.R.R. Tolkien wrote much

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote much about the hobbits. That made them no more real than Jesus.

 I think that say that hobbits are as real as Jesus is a little extreme.

I mean, if you were talking about the mythical Jesus, the super-God-Jesus, I may agree with you, but on the other side, I believe that we have sufficient proofs to say that an historical and human maybe revolutionary Christ existed.


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Quote: I mean, if you were

Quote:
I mean, if you were talking about the mythical Jesus, the super-God-Jesus, I may agree with you, but on the other side, I believe that we have sufficient proofs to say that an historical and human maybe revolutionary Christ existed.

Not by most historical standards, we don't.  At best, we have a couple of books written 70 years after the man supposedly lived, and one or two passing references many decades after that.

You should have a look at Rook's posts about the Jesus Mythicist position.  For the record, I don't call myself a Jesus Mythicist.  I don't think there was a real Jesus, but I'm not certain that we have enough information to say with historical certainty that there was or wasn't a man named Jesus who either started a mystery cult or had  a cult built around him in later decades.

The point is actually moot.  If we learned that there was actually a King Arthur, we would not then say that the story of a magical sword and a watery tart lobbing scimitars was true.  That King Arthur certainly didn't exist.  In the same way, the Jesus that Christians believe in certainly didn't exist.  He is as imaginary as hobbits.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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Hambydammit wrote: The

Hambydammit wrote:

The point is actually moot.  If we learned that there was actually a King Arthur, we would not then say that the story of a magical sword and a watery tart lobbing scimitars was true.  That King Arthur certainly didn't exist.  In the same way, the Jesus that Christians believe in certainly didn't exist.  He is as imaginary as hobbits.

Thank you sir, that is exactly my point. The wonderful sword didn't exist, but I believe that there was an historical King Arthur and a Christ (please, pay attention to the name, I said Christ not Jesus).

I'm going to look at Rook's posts ASAP...


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Quote: but I believe that

Quote:
but I believe that there was an historical King Arthur and a Christ

Unfortunately, the best evidence indicates that you're most likely wrong about Arthur. In fact, I'm not sure of any modern historians who give the Arthur legend any real possibility of being based on a real king named Arthur.

Obviously, I've already mentioned that there's precious little historical evidence of a real Christ, and Rook has written rather extensively on the language mistakes inherent in older interpretations of words thought to indicate a "christ."

In fact, unless there's some amazing new Christ evidence I've never heard of, there's a better case for Arthur than there is for a Christ. The difference is, people have gone into history already believing in Jesus, and most historians remain skeptical about Arthur. It causes a false sense of historical accuracy because so many historians have either assumed Jesus existed, or glossed over contradictory evidence -- or rather, the lack of corroborating evidence.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

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I agree completely with

I agree completely with your last paragraph. 

Talking about Arthur, I'm sure that I would be wrong if I would talk about the ideal king that used to use Excalibur in war and the round table in peace.

Please note that, unfortunately, I was not talking about that Arthur, I was not talking about the Arthr's mith, I was talking about the man underneath the mith and I believe that there was such a man.

I don't remember where I red it, but I red that: time turns thief in heroes and heroes in gods... I think that you see what I mean.


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Hambydammit

Hambydammit wrote:

Quote:
but I believe that there was an historical King Arthur and a Christ

Unfortunately, the best evidence indicates that you're most likely wrong about Arthur. In fact, I'm not sure of any modern historians who give the Arthur legend any real possibility of being based on a real king named Arthur.

 

No historian believes there was an actual "King" called Arthur, but most happily accept that the later legends seem to have been based on the memory of a post-Roman British warlord who held off the Germanic invaders for a while in the late Fifth to early Sixth Centuries.  The later myths do seem to be based on a real person and this is widely accepted by historians of the early Middle Ages.

 

Quote:
Obviously, I've already mentioned that there's precious little historical evidence of a real Christ, and Rook has written rather extensively on the language mistakes inherent in older interpretations of words thought to indicate a "christ."

 

There's also precious little real information about Arthur (the Gododdin, Gildas, a few mentions in early Welsh poems).  Despite this, the number of historians who don't accept that any kind of historical "Arthur" figure existed at all is tiny.  The number that believe we can't know anything much about him, on the other hand, is much larger.

This actually parallels the positions of historians (as opposed to Apologists) on Jesus fairly closely.

Quote:
In fact, unless there's some amazing new Christ evidence I've never heard of, there's a better case for Arthur than there is for a Christ.

 Most of the sources for Arthur are (i) centuries later than the Christian sources for Jesus, (ii) barely more than mentions of his name and (iii) highly mythologised.  The evidence for Jesus is far better than that for Arthur.

 

Quote:
The difference is, people have gone into history already believing in Jesus, and most historians remain skeptical about Arthur.

 

Sorry, most historians are not sceptical about Arthur at all.  Most people don't get upset about whether or not Arthur existed because no-one has any religious or sceptical axes to grind in that debate.

"Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it."
Oscar Wilde