mikec (03/15/83)
(Response to rocheste.924!FtG)
Actually, the genealogy of Jesus is in far worse shape than
that. For example :
Matthew 1:16 "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary,
of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ."
Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty
years of age, being (as was supposed) the son
of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,"
Thus Joseph (the father of Jesus) appears to have two fathers.
Furthermore :
Matthew 2:1 "Now when Jesus was born ... in the days of
Herod the king ..."
Luke 2:2..11 "And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius
(Quirinius) was governer of Syria. ... And
Joseph ... with Mary ... being great with
child ... which is Christ the Lord."
The contradiction is that Herod died in 4 B.C. while the census
of Quirinius occurred in 6 A.D.
Moreover Matthew 1:6..7 claims that Jesus was a descendant of
David's son Solomon while Luke 3:23..31 claims that Jesus was a
descendant of David's son Nathan.
Jesus is not mentioned outside of the Bible and the Dead Sea
Scrolls showed that virtually all of the so called "wisdom" that
Jesus supposedly preached was common knowledge centuries earlier.
Biblical Scholars are not all convinced that Jesus even existed.
Anyone interested in how poor and circumstantial the historical
evidence for Jesus really is should consult the following books :
Pagan Christs by J.M. Robertson 1967 University Books
The Historical Evidence for Jesus by G.A. Wells 1982
Prometheus Books (the author is a New Testament Scholar)
Micheal D. Cranford
Tektronix
Teklabsgreg (03/21/83)
#R:teklabs:-182300:zehntel:19200004:000:492 zehntel!greg Mar 20 18:28:00 1983 Re: "Jesus is not mentioned outside of the Bible..." I know a lot of people have a poor opinion of Josh McDowell, and a lot of people rely too heavily upon his work, but wrt the historicity of Jesus, he has a list of non-biblical references to Jesus in Evidence that Demands a Verdict, pp 84-88. Anyone who is seriously interested in this question should try to check these out. I'll be happy to provide the list to anyone who wants it. Greg Boyd ...decvax!sytek!zehntel!greg
hss (03/27/83)
#R:teklabs:-182300:sri-unix:15700003:000:2938
sri-unix!hss Mar 24 11:30:00 1983
Re: Non-biblical references to Jesus
To be charitable, Josh McDowell is not a very good historian. He never
examines his sources with a modicum of skepticism. Even when he does
admit that some of his material is a bit questionable, he refuses to
discuss opposing points of view fairly. He's quite aware of what
conclusions he wants his audience to reach. Some examples:
1. McDowell's most famous quotation is attributed to Flavius Josephus:
"Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful
to call him a man..." McDowell describes the passage as being
"hotly contested" but doesn't go into detail. He also points out
that the passage is included in the most recent Loeb edition of
the works of Flavius Josephus. McDowell failed to point out that
there were also several lengthy (and critical) footnotes. It's
obvious to most scholars that the passage is a Christian interpolation.
(It'd be embarrassing if Josephus' detailed history of the times
were to neglect mentioning Jesus.)
2. McDowell also quotes Suetonius. "Punishment by Nero was inflicted
on the Christians. McDowell never tells the reader that the sentence
is sandwiched between a regulation concerning cooked foods at cabarets
and a mention of a crackdown on the abuses of chariot drivers. The
paragraph dealt with minor police reforms. This is another Christian
interpolation.
3. Some of McDowell's funnier mistakes involve a couple of pagan writers,
Thallus and Phlegon. McDowell attempts to show that the Romans knew of
the unnatural darkness at noon that is recorded in Matthew. Thallus'
"writings have disappeared and we only know of them from fragments
cited by other writers. One such writer is Julius Africanus, a Christian
writer from about 221 A.D." Aside from the fact that a Christian writer
would be tempted to commit a pious fraud, McDowell apparently doesn't
know that most of Africanus' works have been lost too. Indeed, the remark
in question comes from Africanus' history of the world, a work that
survives in the form of fragments scattered through a history (Eusebius'
Chronicle) that was written much later.
McDowell quotes "Phlegon, a first century historian," as writing that
"during the time of Tiberius Caesar, an eclipse of the sun occured
during the full moon." (This, of course, would be a miracle.)
Unfortunately for McDowell, Phlegon was really a writer of the second
century. Phlegon's most famous work is a history of the Olympics. It
covered up to the 229th Olympics, that is, A.D. 137. (This is another
quotation that survived after being filtered through a couple of
Christian writers.)
So much for McDowell's accuracy.
I have to admit that this is McDowell's worst evidence. But rest assured,
the rest of it isn't much better.
Harry Sameshima
HSS@SRI-UNIX