Any unbiased historical investigation will conclude that Jesus did miracles

(CONTINUED)

> neither of whom disclose what sources

I don’t say this insultingly, but I don’t think you’ve read much ancient history – ancient historians usually don’t mention their sources for most of what they’re reporting

However, as we saw, Tertullian reported that this darkness was recorded in the Roman archives. And Movses Khorenatsi recorded a near-contemporary reference to it (since both Abgar and Tiberius were dead by 40 AD) from the official royal archives.

So we have the most reliable sources that you could possibly hope a historian is citing for some of these!

> You also have a claim of an earthquake, which was hardly an uncommon occurance in the Mediterreanean; with about 2 a year happening

Your source talks about all mentions of any earthquake in the entire Mediterranean and Middle East! Of course there was an earthquake somewhere in Europe or Asia pretty often. But it wasn’t like Judea was seeing two earthquakes every year.

What’s notable about the earthquake is that it took place exactly while this darkness was going on as Abgar and Phlegon of Tralles say, and as the geological evidence attests.

Focusing on the relevant area, according to academia.edu/6108262/Quake_Article, in the sediment where this earthquake was identified “In the 1522-year varve-counting interval in the [Dead Sea] core, brecciated layers were correlated to 28 historically documented earthquakes”.

So you had an earthquake like this occurring, on average, once every 54 years. It stretches any credibility to say that it was just a coincidence that this one took place during a darkness with no known natural causes and exactly while Jesus Christ was on the cross.

> to prove all the miracles of the Greek pantheon?

Nothing even vaguely close to what we have here could be presented. No one thought that the gods had publicly shown themselves and performed anything for eons.

Many people witnessed Jesus' miracles.

Not all of those people were saved.

What are you when the truth is a lie to you?

>t. Butthurt by a real Christian who is not part of a wicked and evil generation demanding miracles

>You had over a hundred thousand people see Aphrodite pull Paris up in a cloud to keep him away from Menelaus. Clearly, we should all be worshiping the Olympics.

Got two non-believing historians who report that?

The Talmud, the "oral Torah" kept by the Pharisees (the guys who pushed for Jesus crucifixion) states clearly that Jesus was a sorcerer.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_the_Talmud

So while they attributed His miracles to evil magic, even Jesus' bitterest enemies didn't deny that He performed miracles. Think about what that means.

Interestingly, the Talmud also records that the regular miracles in the Second Temple ceased about 40 years before the fall of the Temple, which means that Jesus' bitterest enemies record that the miracles of the Temple ceased around AD 30, during the time of Christ's ministry and crucifixion, and never reoccurred. Think about what that means.

>Tertullian
>Moses Khorenatsi
>Not Christian.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian

>Tertullian (/tərˈtʌliən/), full name Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, c. 155 – c. 240 AD,[1] was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa.[2] Of Berber origin,[3][4][5][6][7] he was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and a polemicist against heresy, including contemporary Christian Gnosticism.[8] Tertullian has been called "the father of Latin Christianity"[9][10] and "the founder of Western theology.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movses_Khorenatsi

>Gyut, Catholicos of All Armenians (461-471), one day met Movses while traveling through the area and, unaware of his true identity, invited him to supper with several of his students. Movses was initially silent, but after Gyut's students encouraged him to speak, Movses made a marvelous speech at the dinner table. One of the Catholicos' students was able to identify Movses as a person Gyut had been searching for; it was soon understood that Gyut was one of Movses' former classmates and friends.[13] Gyut embraced Movses and, being either a Chalcedonian Christian, or, at least, tolerant of them (since Movses was also Chalcedonian), brought his friend back from seclusion and appointed him to be a bishop in Bagrevan.

You're pretty shit at doing your homework.

>Often in history, a source is much more distantly removed. Take Alexander the Great, for example. He lived in the fourth century BC, and our earliest biography of him – from Diodorus Siculus - is from the first century BC.

Fortunately, biographies are not the only sources of historical knowledge. We have inscriptions by contemporaries of his, guys like Aristobulus and Onesicritus, as well as more famous folks like Ptolemy.

1/2

>Thallus

Was not quoted until your post right here; and he describes an ordinary eclipse, not a worldwide sudden darkness.

>I don’t say this insultingly, but I don’t think you’ve read much ancient history – ancient historians usually don’t mention their sources for most of what they’re reporting

Yes, and that's why ancient history is very much less certain than modern history, and why we should be skeptical at most of their claims.

>However, as we saw, Tertullian reported that this darkness was recorded in the Roman archives. And Movses Khorenatsi recorded a near-contemporary reference to it (since both Abgar and Tiberius were dead by 40 AD) from the official royal archives.

No, actually they just claim that, without substantiating their claims; given the low level of historical rigor in Christian sources, going all the way back to the New Testament itself (let's misattribute Pharisee and Sadducee positions! I'm sure nobody will notice! The High Priest can totally authorize some nobody to go arrest people IN DAMASCUS!), skepticism is justified.

>Your source talks about all mentions of any earthquake in the entire Mediterranean and Middle East! Of course there was an earthquake somewhere in Europe or Asia pretty often. But it wasn’t like Judea was seeing two earthquakes every year.

It also wasn't like they were unheard of either.

>So you had an earthquake like this occurring, on average, once every 54 years. It stretches any credibility to say that it was just a coincidence that this one took place during a darkness with no known natural causes and exactly while Jesus Christ was on the cross.

Yes, it does. It's almost like it's much more likely these shitheads just made it up. Not to mention the geological evidence is "sometime within that decade", and hardly pinpointed to a given day when there was an eclipse.

Tell me, by the way, why writers like Philo and Josephus don't mention this stuff?

2/2

It means that the ultimate sacrifice for the propitiation of sins had already been made, and that the blood of oxen and lambs were no longer atonement (covering up) for sin.

It also means that the Jews who recorded this were quite literally driven insane by Pharisaical judaism.

ITT: Why Christian "scholars" deserve nothing but scorn and derision.

>Tertullian merely suggested that perhaps evidence of the "Crucifixion Darkness" might be found in Roman archives

No he didn't o_o he outright says there that it is in there.

>the likelier explanation would be interpolation

If there is any source in the entire ancient world that would be most protected from interpolation, it would be the Roman archives. They're going to let a Christian get in there and start scribbling over texts?

Not to mention that, even if some ninja Christian did manage to pull that off, why would they have the archives recording that it was a natural eclipse?

>Seems like a legend or forgery

It, similarly, was in the royal archive of Edessa.

So in addition to the external protections from alteration or fabrication, the text contains internal signs that show that it is authentic.

We have a quirk of translation that shows that Tiberius’ letters truly were translated from Latin originals. Notice that in Tiberius’ reply, he says at one point “when I am free from the war with rebellious Spain…”.

During Tiberius’ reign and especially at the time that these letters would have been exchanged, there was no rebellion in Spain. Now, there were two places referred to as “Hiberia” in Latin: Spain, and the Kingdom of Iberia in the east. (As can be seen [here]( latinlexicon.org/definition.php?p1=2025506), the word refers to either the “name of Spain” or the “Asiatic people near Mount Caucasus, neighbors of the Colchians”).

(CONTINUED IN NEXT POST)

(CONTINUED)

And at exactly this time (34-35 AD), the eastern Iberians were fighting a rebellion against Rome’s nemesis the Parthians, and Tiberius was greatly involved. (See books.google.com/books?id=Bk3XAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT93#v=onepage&q&f=false for an account)

So while Spain wasn’t having any rebellion at the time, Tiberius was deeply involved in a rebellion at this exact time with a people with the same name – in Latin! So this could only have come about if the letter had truly been translated from a Latin original.

> considering the first mention of the letter is from Eusebius in the 4th century

Khorenatsi is for the most part our first Armenian historian of note, and these letters were preserved in archives in Armenia.

Eusebius traveled to Edessa and consulted the archives, so that’s why he was one who quoted them. Anyone who had not been there did not have access to them, to we wouldn’t see any Roman or Jewish writers who hadn’t been there reference them.

However we do have Tertullian report one of the things Tiberius mentions in one of his letters, how he “proposed the affair [that is, to recognize Jesus as one of the gods] to the senate, and they rejected it with contempt”.

Tertullian, in chapter 5 of his Apology, which can be read here: newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm, wrote that “Tiberius accordingly, in whose days the Christian name made its entry into the world, having himself received intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ's divinity, brought the matter before the senate”.

So these letters were preserved in one of the most secure environments for documents in the ancient world, have internal signs that show their authenticity, and the details of what they report is backed up by other sources.

>Never mind that Eusebius nowadays has a reputation for being a liar.

lol only on websites euphoric to the point that they say Jesus himself didn’t exist

Any unbiased historical investigation will
>a priori accept and/or be open to any conclusion the evidence points to
>be just as critical (or even more so) about evidence and sources as when investigating other historical events

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

So out go all the bible qoutes...
So out go all the second hand accounts...
So out goes all the hearsay...
... and you stand empty handed

Come back when you've found a primairy source.

>Was not quoted until your post right here

Oh now I see the problem. Remember in the very first post where the very first thing it said was "see pic related"?

That is the main bulk of the argument. The rest was just supplemental material for it. See the first image for its main thrust.

> and why we should be skeptical at most of their claims

Not if we use simple historic method.

Do we need to be skeptical that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon or Hannibal crossed the alps? Of course not - the sources we have make those a sure thing.

>actually they just claim that, without substantiating their claims

What do you expect them to do, reach out of their texts and guide you by the hand to the archives where you can see them? How even can a text substantiate a claim that a document is in an archive?

That's the simplest claim in the world for Tertullian's opponents - of whom he had many - to check. It would have been simple to destroy either of this great defender of Christianity’s reputation by pointing out that he based his case on lies and fake records

And we have an independent historian who backs up Movses Khorenatsi's report that the archives contained Abgar's letters.

Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, chapter 13 (which can be read here: newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm) wrote that “or in the public registers there, which contain accounts of ancient times and the acts of Abgarus, these things have been found preserved down to the present time. But there is no better way than to hear the epistles themselves which we have taken from the archives and have literally translated…”, and he transcribes a letter of Abgar’s from them.

> the low level of historical rigor in Christian sources, going all the way back to the New Testament itself

Let’s not lose focus. Keeping in on topic, do you have any evidence that any of the sources that I have used have a “low level of historical rigor”?

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(CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)

> It also wasn't like they were unheard of either.

About every half-century on average – and yet this one takes place at the most religiously significant moment of human history right as there’s also an inexplicable darkness?

> It's almost like it's much more likely these shitheads just made it up.

Why would non-Christian historians invent an “eclipse” taking place right as Jesus was crucified?

> Tell me, by the way, why writers like Philo and Josephus don't mention this stuff?

Is there a place in their writings you feel that they should have but didn’t? Neither of them were writing about astronomy.

Plus its quite possible that Josephus had things like this in mind when he wrote about Jesus. The Greek version of the text, as I’m sure you know, has been fiddled with. But if we look to the Arabic versions of his text (which don’t have the blatant interpolations like “he was the Messiah” or “he rose from the dead”) to see what he originally wrote, according to khazarzar.skeptik.net/books/whealey2.pdf in the Arabic version he says “he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders” (note the “perhaps” that the interpolator dropped from the Greek version). So Josephus could’ve well had this in mind as perhaps one of those wonders.

Before you can know that someone isn't willing to accept the truth (and don't get me wrong, you are right that there are a LOT of people like that), you have to discuss it with them a bit.

You don't know that someone is like that until they retreat into unfalsifiability (like saying "well, you can't prove that it wasn't aliens giving Jesus his power, so I won't believe he was the Son of God!").

But if someone asks reasonable questions like "how can we trust these sources?", then they should be given an answer, not dismissed.

Yes, all liberal and godless "Christian scholars" should be anathema to the learning process.

As should your "Magisterium".

The inspired Word of God has been available to you your entire life.

this hard

But still not a primairy source.

(not the person you replied to)

In a way the Bible's pretty much a 0th hand source: even better than a firsthand primary source, it's written by an omniscient being

Interesting, meme free thread for a change.

Congrats for both sides of the argument for actually typing some content.

[spoiler]Jesus Christ is Lord.[/spoiler]

It's written by named humans though. Matthew Mark Luke John Paul etc

Allah*
La Ilaha Ila llah wa Muhamadun Rasulu llah

this shit is why we need /rel/

The Bible may be many things. But the one thing it is not, is a HISTORICAL source.

Betsy DeVos, go away please.

Very fascinating - I think that would also make those letters the very first source to mention Jesus

Really neat find OP! God truly has left us an abundance of evidencd to prove His word is trustworthy

>No he didn't o_o he outright says there that it is in there.
How do you not understand that this has ZERO value as a historical source?

>why won't people accept my assertions that every source I dislike is unrealiable?!!

No one has any trouble using Tertullian as a source for what Marcionites or Gnostics of the time had written. But the second he mentions something that goes against your preconceptions? Why, he's suddenly ZERO VALUE

Your double-standards are easily visible to everyone else

>it's written by an omniscient being

Even supposing the trueness of this statement, it is verifiable fact that the words of the Bible have been transcribed by human hands. Human hands which are not omniscient and are certainly imperfect. And don't get me started on translation conventions--there are distinct differences between the (many) English versions of both the Old and New Testaments and their original Hebrew counterparts.

>Because I say so, that's why.
Go away, dad.