On 12/26/2017 11:24 PM, John Newman wrote:
There is contemporary evidence
of the existence of Pontius Pilate... There is *no contemporary*
evidence for Jesus. Even if you consider Josephus a
contemporary, which he isn't, it is widely accepted that the
few lines "he scribbled" on Jesus are a much later
interpolation, a forgery done by some devout
who was embarrassed at the paucity of evidence for the
messiah.
It is plausibly *suspected* that *one* of Josephus's references to Jesus
is a forgery, or more likely was improved by a Christian editor.
There is no reason to doubt his other references to Jesus.
Further, we have multiple references to the disciples of Jesus. That his
movement existed is undeniable.
We know that Jesus the man existed the same way we know that Pontius
Pilate existed:
Someone like Jesus the man had to exist, in that the rabbis were engaged
in a holiness spiral, a holiness spiral will get called out by prophets,
and then those prophets get suppressed, and someone like Pontius Pilate
had to exist, in that the Roman Empire ruled the area, and history
records Jesus as one of those prophets, and Pontius Pilate as one of the
Roman Empire's administrators.
And if our records of Jesus the man are a bit thin, our records of
Pontius Pilate are not a whole lot thicker.
