No Contemporary References of The Following Historical Figures
Posted on: September 30, 2007 - 1:41am
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No Contemporary References of The Following Historical Figures
Since the Good Ol' RRS appears to think that contemporary reference is required to prove that a historical figure existed, it is not. Here are some figures that have no contemporary references.
Gamaliel
Honi the Circle Drawer
Hillel
Shammai
Hanina ben dosa
Confucius
Buddha
Hannibal
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So are we also supposed to accept the historicity of
Aphrodite
Apollo
Athena
Hades
Zeus
After all we have the works of Homer to prove their existence. Just like the bible except better written and far more entertaining.
I demand that you throw out Jesus or admit that all five figures I listed existed.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
That's right. All you have is Homer. In comparison to the New Testaments 5,700 Greek manuscripts in existance, Homer's Iliad can only boast 643 manuscripts (see Geisler, A General Introduction to the Bible, chap.22).
The New Testament is by far the best attested record in all of ancient history. The Quran is well attested, but it dates to medieval, not classical or ancient history like the NT and the OT.
That's our line. You are in no position to make such a damand.
The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator -- Louis Pasteur
Well considering Homer was 700 to 800 years earlier this is hardly surprising, especially considering at that time Greece was an oral culture. What is your point? Are we to judge history solely by how many manuscripts are written?
And because a lot of people believed it I should believe it because...
I was throwing the OP's original words back at him to illustrate how absurd they are. Basically the assumption that either all the people were real or none of them were is absurd.
Personally, I think it is perfectly possible that Jesus the person existed. But other than to say he didn't do half of the things the New Testament says he did I don't really give a damn. Jesus Christ the "son of God" is as historical as Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyon or the Greek Gods.
But if the best argument for the historicity of Jesus is that you have to automatically accept it if you accept the historicity of person X is weak at best.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
I have first hand accounts that David Copperfield made a train disappear, can fly, survived a fall down Niagra falls (without getting wet) and made the Statue of Liberty disappear. (Walk of water, turn water into wine, childs play!)
I can also get you first hand accounts of UFO's, the Lochness Monster, Yeti's, Bigfoot etc.
I can even show them to you written on paper.
My point? First hand accounts are not a reliable source even if they are written in a pretty book.
Ok for the sake of argument none of them existed except Hannibal as discussed and I would throw in Confucious since we can trace his descendents down to people who are alive today, hard for a man who never existed to have descendents. Now prove that Jesus did.
Although I would point out there is far less reason to question the existence of those other historical figures then there is to question Jesus. No one is claiming the others are the son of God. When you make extraordinary claims, you can't be surprised when people question them.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
IT WAS SAID: When you make extraordinary claims, you can't be surprised when people question them.
MY RESPONSE: That often repeated motto has serious problems to it.
First, the word "extroardinary"/"unusual" is ambiguous. Does it mean supernatural? If so, then it begs the question, for it amounts to saying, "A miraculous claim demands miraculous evidence." But if one provided miraculous evidence for that, then the objector would ask miraculous evidence for that, and so on to infinity.
Second, if "extroardinary"/ "unusual" simply means merely more than normal, then the New Testament meets the challenge, since there are more manuscripts, earlier ones, more accurately coppied ones, with more witnesses, and more corroberated by external evidence for the New Testament than any other book in antiquity.
Third, the word "extroardinary" is imprecise. How extroardinary does the evidence have to be? Who determines the meaning? What are the objective criteria for unusualness? Are these applied consistently with other unusual claims in history and other disciplines?
Fourth, many views in modern science that are very unusual have been accepted. The big bang theory is a case in point: By the standards operating in modern science, the explosion of the universe out of nothing was a highly unusual event. Yet only normal scientific evidence has been required to believe it, such as the second law of theromodynamics, an expanding universe, etc,
Fifth, many purely natural events are highly unusual; for example, virtually everything in nature contracts as it gets colder, yet when water reaches 32 Fahrenheit, it expands. Scientists do not require highly unusual or "extraordinary" evidence that this is so -- only the regular observation demanded to establish other natural events.
In short, the claim that "unusual events demand unusual evidence," is an unusual claim that needs unusual evidence as to why it should be accepted. Thus, it fails to undermine the historicity of the New Testament; there is more then ample evidence for the miraculous claims it contains.
All such objections either beg the question or are self-defeating.
The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator -- Louis Pasteur
IT WAS SAID: Well considering Homer was 700 to 800 years earlier this is hardly surprising.
MY RESPONSE: Perhaps, but it still only has 643 manuscripts. Do you know how many manuscripts the OLD Testament has?
First, there are only 7 for Plato, 8 for Thucydides, 8 for Herodotus, 10 for Caesar's Gallic Wars, and 20 for the works of Tacitus.
YET, as early as the 1700s Benjamin Hennicott published 615 Old Testament manuscripts, and a few years later Giovanni de Rossi published 731 manuscripts (see Geisler, A General Introduction to the Bible, p.408).
Further, beginning around 1890 some 10,000 Old Testament manuscripts were found in the Cairo Geniza, and since 1947 caves by the Dead Sea at Qumron have produced over 600 more Old Testament manuscripts. The largest collection of manuscripts in the world, the Second Firkowitch Collection in Leningrad, contain 1,582 items of the Bible and Masora on parchment, plus 1200 Hebrew fragments.
The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator -- Louis Pasteur
@Apotheon
A miraculous claim demands evidence, period. Lodging that second "miraculous" into the sentence makes evidence sound preposterous; incidentally, I suspect you slipped in choosing this word because "miraculous" doesn't sound probable even to you. An extraordinary claim demands more evidence than a hum-drum one because it's improbable and unprecedented. If I said I saw a red Volkswagen the other day, and produced no evidence for it, that claim would generally be accepted because it's precedented and there's no obvious motive for me to lie about something so mundane. If I said I saw a unicorn the other day, few people would accept it and move on. They would want evidence. And, because we've seen attention-seekers fake photos before, it would take something more: like a DNA sample or a specimen. Now heap the improbability and lack of precedence of the unicorn with the slobbering, frothing, ungainly, groping desperation of the devout. Add to that the staggering reputation for deception and intellectual dishonesty by the religious (and many religions consider all others false), and you have a perfect storm of suspect claims.
Your comparison to the Big Bang Theory doesn't hold up either. You equivocate in your use of the word "belief," is if it were equivalent to religious belief. The theory stands for now because that's what was extrapolated from the data. New data could completely overthrow the theory. This is different from your, "a guy wrote it down, and another guy copied it, and another guy copied it, therefore it's true" argument. Christians have been desperate scroungers since the religion's inception.
The claim that a person if God is extraordinary no matter what your definition of extraordinary or what the definition of is is. Basically, it isn't everyday that a person can claim to be the Son of God and/or have other people claim they are the Son of God. If anyone says something like that it needs some evidence.
If I could write or have written about me 10,000 manuscripts that claimed I was God and got some cult to follow me would you believe it without proof?
Basically, I want some evidence that Jesus was in fact the Son of God. The fact that a lot of people believed it during a time when even more people believed the world was flat isn't proof to me. Now if Jesus had said, "The world is round and there is a continent that believers have not found yet. Go there to spread my word." Which Jesus as Son of God would have known, I would give that quite a bit more credibility. At least such a statement would really make me wonder. As things stand there really isn't anything more mysterious in the bible than the Illiad or Odessey. The only difference is the bible had more readers which considering it was spread by the Roman Empire is hardly surprising.
Um, last time I checked the Big Bang Theory is still called a "theory" and in many intellectual circles is still contested. Although I back Magilum up in that the Big Bang at least has some physical evidence that the conclusion can be drawn from. But I would hardly consider the Big Bang settled science. Although if it did happen it wasn't unusual. We know there are a lot of other universes out there, presumably they were developed the same way ours was. Now someone being the "Son of God" that is unusual. You believe there was one and only one. Of course maybe God is a horndog and has offspring all over the place and Jesus was just the dramatic child who wanted all the attention.
Which scientists have regular and repeatable observation available. Actually water freezing isn't very unusual especially since the invention of the freezer.
Conveniently, repeatable observation of Jesus is not possible which is kind of weird if he was really resurrected. If he could do it once, why hasn't he appeared in the last two millenia?
When you were a kid, did you ever do a science experiment yourself? I know when I heard things about science that sounded unusual I tested them to see for myself if the scientists were right (they always were). The bottom line is that broadly accepted scientific theories are all based on physical and repeatable experiments. Your little theory is based on what people believed 2000 years ago. Much of what people 2000 years ago "knew" as fact has been proven wrong such as the world being flat or the Earth being the center of the universe etc. If we took all of the manuscripts of the time that made these claims and used them as proof I guess science must be wrong. The world is flat and all of us blasphemers are creating a gigantic hoax because people 2000 years ago knew everything and were never wrong and their beliefs were always based of factual evidence. But the people who lived 2700 years ago didn't write enough and therefore were incorrect in their beliefs.
Give me something other than an old book to prove your beliefs.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X