Again, it really depends on what you accept as to what approximates the truth in regards to Jesus.

For example, I side with many scholars in regards to a document as having once existed known as the "Q Document."

The Q document derives it's name from the German word of "Quelle," which means "Source."

It is from this Q document where the Gospel writers began to embellish the life of Jesus, but the Q document itself was but a collection of the sayings and teachings of Jesus.

A half decent example of what a Q document may look like would be the Gospel of Thomas, which many scholars suggest to actually be older than the canon gospels.

But what I am saying is that the teachings of Jesus are what made him unusual. His teachings appear to be derived partly from the Essene school of thought, as well as his own interpretations of the Torah.

His teachings contradicted many of the teachings of the Pharisee and Sadducee school of thought, with the end result of Jesus being killed for his teachings because his teachings were getting quite popular.

No no, that's not what I am saying. I said that the teachings of Jesus were "derived partly from the Essene school of thought, as well as his own interpretations of the Torah.

What he was essentially doing was creating a new school of thought by incorporating some of the teachings of the Essene with his own interpretations.
 

I have read his argument and although I respect his work, his argument is rather weak. He doesn't detail much aside from making a couple of assertions, and offers little abductive reasoning to support them.

I think he's at the "chew toy" stage, so "seriously" might be an exaggeration.

Nothing will be proved by arguing .....

Well, it is without doubt that from what I have seen and clearly demonstrated here so far, the RRS cannot be taken seriously with their views. I have nothing personal against anyone here, but it is very apparent that the RRS is exceptionally incapable of defending their arguments without resorting to methods in which they begin to troll their adversary. The lack of maturity I have seen from the RRS is very surprising indeed.

This website and its views are a massive disappointment for scholarship. Since the arguments so far posted by Rook have been exposed as strawman arguments, as well as a total travesty in scholarship, I will personally launch a vendetta against the views of this website which will be so far widespread across the net that you will not be able to go to any relative site without seeing scathing remarks against this one.

This website needs to be exposed for what it is, and what it is is a complete insult to intelligence. Incapable of rational response, the RRS certainly does not live up to its name, but instead insults such a name by making a complete mockery of it.

To prove my point, I hereby challenge all 3 members of the RRS staff to a debate of 3 vrs 1 (You vrs me) on the neutral forum at Faith Freedom International.  I give you a 3 vrs 1 advantage in an Exclusive Room at FFI to defend your position regarding whether or not Jesus is historically evidenced.

Let's see if the RRS has the intestinal fortitude to back up their claims while under the gun of fair moderation.

How do I know the RRS will avoid this challenge with more childish trolling techniques? That evidence is readily available in this thread.

Either face me there, or see me every where. And I will be every where.

The point is not about any speculation of mine, but of exposing the arguments of the RRS for what they are; worthless.

In short, their arguments are strawman fallacies, and total inaccuracies, and I intend to expose them for precisely that.

Just as I have already done in this forum already.

F...FFI -  Well, thanks for your passion. All mentioning of RRS, or any atheist site, is helpful to crushing superstition. The more atheists the better, whether militant, mild, dumb, or smart. Good cops / bad cops slaying religion.   

Most everything thing I've read regarding ancient bible history, and especially Jesus,  is mostly a hypothesis, no matter how loud or dramatic it is presented. For me personally whether Jesus or Buddha historically existed makes no difference as to my simple message of "Oneness".  This takes zero knowledge of "history" scholarship.

Let's see it Rook.

Let's see your stellar arguments.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/rook_hawkins/the_jesus_mythicist_campaign/2888

Your questions ignored previous answers as if I hadn't even stated them. This behavior is typical of what has been demonstrated by Rook and others here at RRS, and therefore you placed yourself in their camp by doing the very same thing.

For example, you stated the following ....

... while ignoring my previous statement of ...

You have also demonstrated either an unwillingness or lack of ability in understanding my clear statements, evidenced by the following quotes:

The type of behavior above places you in suspicion of your motives, and therefore justifies my comments regarding you.

If you are going to behave like that, then you will be viewed in the same manner as Rook and the others.

You haven't presented anything to debate yet.  All you have proved is your ability to talk endless about nothing, that you have no point, and that you can only attack me personally without discussing any other issues.  So if you have some sort of argument to present that would show that Tacitus is a trustworthy source of information, that you can show that he used Roman documents when discussing Jesus, then present them.  Otherwise, you are not presenting an argument at all, save an argument from ignorance.  And worse yet, as I've shown countless times in this thread, you're shifting goal posts.

But I've already exposed you on that.  Not to mention, I've exposed you as a liar and you've exposed yourself as nothing but a child who has intentions of making the RRS seem worthless.  You've outed yourself as an unbias source.  You'll have this embarrassment on your head.  I will not be phased by this, and the people who will care about it are not going to be important enough for me to sweat over.

Regards.

Unbiased?  That is rather amusing.  I was banned from RD.net for asking someone if they were displaying their "normal distasteful personality" after my initial post of defending the RRS.  No warning.  No explaination.  I was then mischaracterized by the RD.net mod Richard Prins as continuing to "attack/insult" people even though that was the worst thing I said about anyone.

You won't find that kind of hair trigger, irrational behavior here.  If our roles were reversed, Fathom, and I was playing the opposite stance on RD.net I would have been banned 49 posts earlier than your current post count. 

Yet here you sit. 

Not being censored. 

Still allowed to post your viewpoints and your opinions. 

But on the RD forums you will not be allowed that kind of dissent.

I feel ashamed that such a good man is represented by such a pisspoor forum.

RRS is not the founders is the point , I AM RRS too ..... therefore you insulted me F FFI

    I love you more ! Me RRS

RD.net forums cannot be trusted to contain  an unbiased debate of this manner.  Anyone that sides on an RRS members side will have their posts deleted and will be banned.  If you want to read one side of the debate, then by all means, go there.  However, you cannot say that you can get an unbiased reflection of debate there.  The thread will most likely have been "sanitized" of dissenting opinions.

I have no opinion on the core topic of this discussion on whether the biblical stories were based on a real individual or on simply nothing more than fiction.

However RD.net is not a place that I would trust to read a good "back and forth" discussion on it.  Especially when one side is represented by a core RRS member.  Please give us a third link to neither the RRS or RD.net forums for people discussing the matter.  RD.net forum has proven that it is heavily biased and not to be trusted for any serious debate.

Geeezz , what's the point ? Can I cuss now ?  So Watcher is a lier ?  Is everyone FUCKING NUTS ?   ..... YUP, just admit it !     

Fathom,

Do you have, like, an actual point? Or is this just an extended session of mental masturbation?

'At some point in time, maybe there was a guy named Jesus, and maybe he was cucified.'

Oh. Woah.

Talk about overturning Jesus mysticism. Even if your assertion were proved correct, and Tacitus really was recounting an actual excution, it would be totally irrelevent. Essentially, according to you, we should then feel free to 'wiggle around' the story of Jesus until it can fit into our world.

Couldn't have been born of a virgin?

Wasn't terribly likely to have been pointed-out by angels?

Unlikely that he walked on water or raised the dead?

'Well, that stuff's all just made-up. But I'm pretty sure there was still a dude named Jesus!'

This is, at best, a nitpicky academic pissing match. Whether or not there was a jew named Jesus who was executed on the cross (the the evidence largely views Tacitus's account as fuzzy at best), we know that:

 - The Biblical accounts are ficticious

 - He wasn't the son of God, because

 - God doesn't exist

 - He couldn't perform magic tricks, and wasn't particularly special or popular

You're asserting that Tacitus's account was factual and accurate, and that Jesus Christ, son of Mary and Joseph, existed. What evidence do you base those claims on? And what relevence do you propose that holds in terms of practical application outside of pure academia?

You failed to address the point of this topic, which was Rook's assertions on the Tacitus text, and my refutation of his argument.

That's the focus here.

Cool, Let's keep the focus on "saving" the religious .... as meaning defeating superstition, Jesus or not ???  .....  is an exorcise in interpreting history. I wouldn't let it get under your skin .... Let's party !    

And you failed to answer my questions, douche.

Now that is the proper attitude.

My entire point here initially was not to attack Rook or the RRS, but to take Rook's arguments apart and show him what was wrong with them. I did not come here with a "Jesus existed, and that's that" attitude, but with the intent of helping Rook to be more accurate in his work.

Instead, Rook immediately took offense to my arguments against his assertions, and refused to address the evidence I supplied which, without any doubt, refuted his assertions of the Tacitus text.

Would you people rather see Rook's book go into print with those arguments he has, and watch how he gets totally ridiculed? If all it takes is an anonymous person like myself to wreck his argument on Tacitus, what do you think will happen to him if his book goes mainstream and under the scrutiny of those more knowledgeable than myself?

If any of you really care about Rook, you will talk some sense to him. He needs to have that chip knocked off his shoulder and brought down to earth NOW, rather than have it done later by people far more advanced in knowledge than himself or myself.

Do not defend him just because he's "Rook_Hawkins," for the best defense you can give him is encouraging him to deal with criticism maturely, and to recognize his error for the sake of correction.

If you do nothing, then that shows how little you cared about him, doesn't it?

This is getting ridiculous now. Your arguments against his assertions were nothing but cutesy logical dancing. To recap, the statement you find so abusive to scholarly sensibilities:

It's a completely reasonable statement to say that should Jesus have existed, it would have been very unusual that he show up in Roman records. That's all that's being said here, and you've turned it into a circus. Notice how many times the phrase "would have" appears in the paragraph to give you an idea that Rook's implying a hypothetical situation.

When investigating claims, questions must be asked, and answers given.

For example:

Q: Why would it be unusual that a record of the crucifixion show up in Roman records? What evidence do you present to support this assertion?

As you can see, by merely asking a question the person who made the assertion above has assumed a burden of proof, for now he must show just cause as to why it would be unusual for the Roman's to have received a record of the crucifixion of Jesus. Until he can show evidence to support his assertion, then his assertion is worthless.

He is asserting that it is unlikely that the Romans would have received a report regarding the crucifixion of Jesus, but offering no documented evidence as to why not.

Therefore, his assertion is meaningless, and without support. Because of this, it is not evidence against the claim of the Tacitus text being valid, and is therefore dismissed.

Will, as always you sum up the discussion expertly, as if you had somehow been a mediator in over a hundred divorce cases.  I appreciate your understanding of where I am coming from in this matter.

It isn't even that we have Tacitus, it's the fact that in every instance we have a source discuss Jesus, it is different, in a new way, never the same at any time.  The fact that Jesus is thrown into history in three places--(1) during the reign of Alexander Jennaeus, (2) Herod Antipas (in one instance he is killed under Herod, and in Matthew and Luke he is born during different periods around Herod, oddly in the case of Luke, Herod is already dead at this point if we consider that Luke is attempting to suggest a census was happening at this point which would have been around 6 CE not 4 BCE - a difference of almost a decade), (3) Pontius Pilate--several of these references are Talmudic, one is in Epiphanaeus, two are in the Gospels, one of which is earlier than Tacitus.  The problem is that this is exactly the sort of thing you see when somebody takes a fictional, literary event, like the Trojan War or some provisional Roman prefect named Aurthur, and attempts to place it into history. 

What it comes down to is relevance.  The question is, why are we taking for granted the historicity of Jesus, assuming his historical existence, when it is so clearly evident just from studying the genre of the gospels (they are not, as Talbert proposed, biographies; rather the gospels are the genre of Hellenistic Jewish fiction) that Jesus is a literary archetype.  Even his death serves a purpose in the narrative.  The Jesus of the Gospels, the only Jesus the Christians in Tacitus' discussion knew of (and no other, and no evidence can be presented otherwise), is the new David. 

(I must apologize right now if these allusions come off haphazard, as I am pressed for time, and all of these allusions will be applied to criteria in my book at great length; consider this the abridged "forum" version)

Just as David has sinned, so had Jesus here and there throughout the Gospel of Mark; and not only these incidents, also at his death, itself a sin according to Deuteronomist traditions.  Mark was writing after the fall of the temple, where hundreds of Jews were being crucified outside the city of Jerusalem during the siege (if Josephus can be believed or if he is just exaggerating the numbers), and Mark, a brother of Christ, would have been more then aware of the sin, that being hung on a tree (literally, the manner in which Luke uses to describe the crucifixion of Jesus) was an abomination to the Lord.  But Paul's theology of the resurrection and forgiveness of sins countered temple law, and Mark used this theme to incorporate Jesus as David for his generation.  David had sinned against the Lord, and the Lord sent a plague, which killed 70,000.  David was so upset at this he said, "Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me and against my father’s house." (2 Sam. 24:17)  Jesus' death, for Mark, is the representation of the hope of the resurrection which Mark understands from Pauline theology and the theology of the early Christians (whoever they were), and from whence Paul converted into.  Opposite of the Lord staying his hand in Samuel, sparing David and Jerusalem from the plague, no such event occurred in 70 CE.  The Roman attack was vicious and devastating.  However, to Mark, Jesus had already taken care of it all.  As discussed in Paul (see my related blog article; On Paul and Identity - the whole thing please)  the heavenly rulers (archons) killed Jesus, and when he resurrected, so were all those who had been awakened to the knowledge Jesus imparted.  There was a literal and metaphorical death, as well as birth, and for Mark, those who had perished in Jerusalem were reborn - this was the ultimate plan of God. 

Like I said this is the short, abridged version.  It is truly more elaborate, more evidenced.  This just explains the perspective I'm getting across.  The second we start assuming the Tacitus account is acceptable evidence is the second we start falling into the failures of the historical Jesus quests.  Instead of separating the kerygma of Jesus from the "historical" aspects of the gospels--whatever they are--we are circularly following them.  The Jesus in Tacitus is the kerygmatic Jesus of Luke, of Tertullian, of Eusebius.  He is not separated from the Gospels.  He is one and the same. 

In any event, my regards.

*edit* This is from an endnote of an old article I wrote.  This should have some bearing on my kerygma argument.

------------

It is interesting that the quest admits to the existence of mythmaking and kerygma but fails to realize that the same kerygma—or perhaps other strands or types of kerygmatic thought—exists in various Christian communities, in which that same kerygma would have influenced Tacitus’ understanding of the Jesus legend as it was recounted to him by others.  Or to put it simpler, Tacitus was recounting the kerygma the quest is trying to remove.  By falling back on Tacitus as a source to prove a historical event, (1) the historical Jesus scholar allows much more time for this kerygma to develop and (2) are using kerygma to prove kerygma instead of history.  Again, the logic becomes circular.  A similarity could be drawn in the case of Pompeius Trogus (or perhaps Justinian) who draws on earlier legendary embellishment of the Moses stories produced probably from a gentile community which suggested the Jews were infected with disease and were kicked out of Egypt—hopefully no historian of any credible merit would take this account to be anything more than hearsay and fabrication repeated.  Tacitus should be looked at no differently, especially in light of the admitted Christology and kerymatic thought of the period!

Okay, guys - I have to tell you this:

Everything that anyone in the government has told you about aliens is a lie. And they've paid-off NASA and just about every other scientific organization to propagate this lie!

Luckily for you, I know the truth, and I'm unbiased. So here it is:

The greys are among us, and they're reading your brains. The only defense against them are tinfoil hats.

Question: What does the above statement have in common with Tacitus's statement, as far as it's criteria for being a piece of evidence is concerned?

If your contention is that such records are only alluded to in other sources, and thus their nature is up for debate, then you're absolutely right. We have no physical Roman records of that kind. They could have recorded every footstep that Jesus took. They also could have ignored the whole process. What's more likely? Well, he wasn't in Rome, or any significant city. What's likely is that it got ignored, and wasn't significant to the Roman elite at the time. That' just speculation about what's likely, and that's all that Rook is doing. His use of "unlikely" and "improbable" in the paragraph are an indication of his speculation, not of a statement of fact. If you're going to attack his speculation, then go ahead. But anyone who can read could figure out that it's speculation, and would never be treated as fact. 

Not at all! Speculation and discussion aren't worthless, they're grounds for further research. Rook isn't making an assertion for which a burden of proof would be necessary, he's making a comment on the likelyhood that the affairs of a backwater state in the Roman empire would catch much interest. There could have well been records of the time that had Jesus' name written all over them, but they haven't survived, so all we can do is speculate. If you take speculation as fact, then I don't know how to help you.

Tacitus is the only historian of the period who even mentions the followers of Christus. Once. That's evidence that it wasn't very important to anybody. Since no other records exist, that may be a misrepresentation of how everyone felt. Documents may have existed that recorded the death of Christus as being significant, but they're lost. So here we are pitting speculation against speculation. There are no facts here, and that's why it's reasonable to say that Jesus' actual existence is "doubtful". Note that I am not claiming for a fact that Jesus did not exist! It merely seems probable that he did not exist.

But the main idea of Rook's real assertion (that Jesus was a literary figure) is, in fact, compelling. In that light, we can interpret Tacitus as describing followers of Christus who claim that Pontius Pilate executed their religious leader. Whether they meant that metaphorically or not is up for debate.