jpholding
November 3rd 2006, 12:29 PM
Back in July I challenged the dim dums over at the “Rational Response Squad” (or as I call them, Fundy Atheists on the Run) to debate me on the Christ myth. For some reason I asked Jedi Punkish to deliver the challenge for me, and I can’t recall why just now rather than do it myself. But anyway, one of their number, Rook Hawkins (or as I prefer to call him, Dork Dawkins) has lately written a response to me on his “myspace” page (hyuk hyuk) and I wanted to write my response here so others can join in on mocking yet another fundy atheist in the JPH Trophy Collection.
Dork starts by linking his readers over to the usual tiny list of people who have actually tried writing rebuttals to me. Of course I have answered each of these already, but he doesn’t seem to know that:
G.A. Wells: http://www.tektonics.org/uz/wellsga01.html
Richard Carrier: http://www.tektonics.org/qt/rubicon.html (more than one part)
Ebon Musings: several places, but mainly http://www.tektonics.org/af/ebon01.html
Jim “The Lip” Lippard: within http://www.tektoonics.com/parody/brooksbonked.html
Paul Jacobsen: There’s a debate here on TWeb at http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=320269
Farrell Till: Need I say more? http://www.tektonics.org/TK-T.html under his name
Daffy Duck: http://www.tektoonics.com/parody/daffywhacked.html
Robert M. Price: http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose_CC3.html
I mean, don’t these guys ever check to see if I’ve responded before they post this stuff?
Anyway, after that temper tantrum Dork goes on to address my anti-blog notes of July about this subject. Other than a lot of wah wah Holding is such a meanie unworthy of a debate with a genius like me stuff, we get to where I ask:
But note here, that RR doesn't seem to really know what it is they want us to prove. Do they want us to prove that a certain man named Jesus walked the earth (regardless of what else he did), or that he walked the earth AND did all these things like walking on water?
And Dork says:
Either one. Either is improvable (sic) due to the fact that there is no evidence. And either one will refute the existence of Jesus. The fact that a man named Jesus could have existed without all the miracles and power refutes Christianity – as he couldn't have been the savior, and hence once that belief is gone – Christianity would be just as useless.
Although if you know something about Mythicism (which you don't) you'd know the Mythicist position is that Christ was not historical, yet was euhemerized later by a growing orthodox denomination.
I know that very well, thanks, and it doesn’t make any difference to the question I asked. But at least now, several months later, we know what they’re on about.
I say:
Is this a simple question of historicity of a person, or is it more? RR's bulletin flips between the two like a Mexican jumping bean on a griddle.
He says:
Nice radical analogy there, got any more stereotypes?
Steroetypes? Of what? Mexican jumping beans? Is Dork gonna contact the Mexican Jumping Bean Anti-Defamation League?
I say:
In addition, what's with the notion that evidence has to be contemporary with the subject to be of any use?
Dork says:
Because of the maxim "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence". If somebody told you they witnessed a flying monkey with pink polka dots, would you just accept that evidence or would you demand more?
Um, well, aside from the fact that that maxim was invented by Carl Sagan, and isn’t recognized as a legal principle in courts of law, and has been refuted by critics of Hume like Earman, there’s nothing “extraordinary” about the idea that a man named Jesus existed and was the founder of a movement that became Christianity. Furthermore, the original complaint was only that the data was not contemporary, not that the thing described was incredible. So basically, Dork here is trying to justify his idiotic argument by changing it.
I say:
Historians from the ancient and the modern world wrote/write most of their material about things that happened before they were born. What's the deal here?
Dork says:
You apparently don't know who Philo and Josephus were. Or Pliny the Elder. Or Pliny the Younger, all of whom wrote of their time period as well as the past. What of Paul who also wrote of his time period? Or Clement? You are confusing historians as people who only write and document the past.
I have no idea what Dork is on about here, but he seems to be on drugs. I know these people wrote about their own times and about the past. That’s my point. Is Dork just going to wave off what Josephus wrote about stuff before he lived? I made this clear in my next point, even for the most stupid, when I said
If Tacitus was born in (say) 63 AD, then anything he says from 62 AD or before is down the loo automatically?
And missing my point, Dork repsonds:
Of course not. But if Seutonius said something contradicting Tacitus, historians today would hold that passage suspect. It's called analyzing the evidence. Apparently you are unaware of this process.
Whatever that has to do with anything. There aren’t any ancient writers who say Jesus did not exist; indeed even hostile writers say he did, and even say he did miracles (as Celsus does), so what’s the point here? What’s Dorky smoking?
Dorky excuses RR’s challenge asking for contemporary accounts by saying:
The contest is more of a tool of education, to show people who think there are accounts out there that there really isn't. And to get people to do independent studying, and not just rely on poorly researched websites with a string bias like yours.
In other words, RR offered a bogus contest. That’s illegal, isn’t it? In any event we don’t have much beyond a snotty nose to tell us how it is that a writer has to be “contemporary” to have his testimony accepted. Dork goes on about debating me on Gospel dates:
If you actually had something substantial with to date the Gospels.
I do: http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html
And what of Luke-Acts constantly references Josephus? I bet you're going to try and tell me that Josephus wrote in the early-mid first century?
Um, no. http://www.tektonics.org/lp/lukeandjoe.html The claims connections are bogus.
You're no historian, although you like to think you are. That's why Richard Carrier will have nothing to do with you, and the likes also of Robert Price also ignore you? Because you are a fraud.
Um, didn’t Dork just link to articles by Price and Carrier that have been “ignoring” me? :huh:
Anyway, I then go on to list 5 candidates and talk about how easy it is to beat their second offer, and Dorky says with a cringe:
This is why Sapient removed the second price. Sapient was unaware until Carrier and I explained to him why it is futile to have the second part of the contest. So now we only have one. What this shows is our honesty. We aren't just sticking with the second prize even though we know it is a false claim. We are honest enough to remove that part.
And again, Sapient is not the Historical expert. I am.
So I guess what this amounts to is:
1) RR members don’t talk to each other, or experts, before they do stupid stuff like this.
2) It is “honest” to do something stupid like this.
Sounds good to me. On to July 7 comments, past more rah rah. Dork claims I didn’t read the RR thread on this but fails to explain how this is so. Here’s a laugh. I said
provided in the Analects suggest a date within 25 years. Oh? In that case, we can use the Gospels, because even the wild-eyed Jesus Seminar is willing to trace some of what's in the Gospels back to Jesus, no?
And Dork says:
And amazingly the Gospels they trace back are from the Gnostics. None of the Synoptics. And I bet you Dr. Price would have a bit to say to you about that.
Um – what? The Seminar used the four canonical Gospels plus Thomas, so they used only ONE from Gnostics. Hello? Then we have this admission that needs no comment:
Carrier is the one, actually, who made Sapient reevaluate the second prize. I did have a bit of an edge, but Carrier was the one who showed Sapient that there are a lot of characters assumed to be historical with mentioned sometimes hundreds of years after they have died. The difference here, however, is clearly described in debates listed in my "Jesus Mythicist Campaign" forum.
Uh huh. On to July 8. Dork claims he didn’t get the email I copy in this entry, which of course he would not – it was to ME about something posted in the RR board. Then d for some reason wishes to make the point that “Judas the Galilean is not the same as Judas Iscariot, unless you want to claim that Judas Iscariot started his own sect of Judaism in the Gospels?” I have no idea what drugs this man takes, because all the letter says is:
I actually posted some of these suggestions on the “Rational Responders” discussion board. I was promptly informed that “biblical figures” did not count because the Bible is not trustworthy. (Nevermind that this is the usual skeptic play of treating the Bible as one monolithic source when it is in fact a collection of often independent sources of different genres and time periods). When I pointed out that figures such as John the Baptist and Judas the Galilean were well established by non-biblical sources, I was told that it did not matter because they wanted to “whittle” the number of possibilities down. Biblical figures, even those whose existence is not disputed and is established by non-biblical sources, would not be considered for the contest. This made no sense.
I have no idea what this has to do with Judas Iscariot. But then more excuses:
It's important to note that Brian Sapient is not the Historical expert in the group. I am. And I did not issue that first challenge. He did. The RRS consists of three core members. One is the scientist (actually is a scientist), Mike. Brian Sapient is the philosophy guy and general fill in. And I am the ancient texts expert (not self-proclaiming) and historian of the group. I am sure that if Sapient got an e-mail like this, he would have forwarded it to me. But I did not receive one, or I would have replied to it then.
Well, again, it was an email to me about something on RR’s board, not an email to him. But this is Mr. Expert talking.
Dork goes on to say he’ll accept my debate challenge if I do it his way:
His cronie "AtheismSucks" told me that I'm a coward, however, for not debating on an "unbias" forum with a moderator. The problem is no forum is "unbias" and Holding is only smart on the interweb because he can plagerize and use time to internet search something. On the air, he can be exposed, so he won't come on the air with me to see who really knows more.
Um, yeah. So consulting scholars is “plagerizing” and doing research proves you don’t know more. :huh: No, Dork knows good and well he’d get his bottom tanned in a written debate, because he doesn’t have any critical capacity to do research and answer hard arguments. More on why below when we see a sample of his “expertise”.On air, he can use profanity and “hurl the elephant” knowing there won’t be time to correct all of his errors.
So what kind of expert is Dork, anyway? He’s actually an expert at uncritically swallowing what 19th century freethinkers said without any documentation or expertise. This is shown in how he treats the Tacitus reference. All of his responses are taken from the likes of Remsberg, not modern Greco-Roman scholars. Thus:
It would be utterly ridiculous to use this, but still, some do.
• (1) It is extremely improbable that a special report found by Tacitus had been sent earlier to Rome and incorporated into the records of the Senate, in regard to the death of a Jewish provincial, Jesus. The execution of a Nazareth carpenter would have been one of the most insignificant events conceivable among the movements of Roman history in those decades; it would have completely disappeared beneath the innumerable executions inflicted by Roman provincial authorities. For it to have been kept in any report would have been a most remarkable instance of chance.
• (2) The phrase "multitudo ingens" which means "a great number" is opposed to all that we know of the spread of the new faith in Rome at the time. A vast multitude in 64 A.D.? There were not more than a few thousand Christians 200 years later. The idea of so many just 30 years after his supposed death is just a falsehood.
• (3) The use of the Christians as "living torches," as Tacitus describes, and all the other atrocities that were committed against them, have little title to credence, and suggest an imagination exalted by reading stories of the later Christian martyrs. Death by fire was not a punishment inflicted at Rome in the time of Nero. It is opposed to the moderate principles on which the accused were then dealt with by the State.
• (4) The Roman authorities can have had no reason to inflict special punishment on the new faith. How could the non-initiated Romans know what were the concerns of a comparatively small religious sect, which was connected with Judaism and must have seemed to the impartial observer wholly identical with it.
• (5) Suetonius says that Nero showed the utmost indifference, even contempt in regard to religious sects. Even afterwards the Christians were not persecuted for their faith, but for political reasons, for their contempt of the Roman state and emperor, and as disturbers of the unity and peace of the empire. What reason can Nero have had to proceed against the Christians, hardly distinguishable from the Jews, as a new and criminal sect?
• (6) It is inconceivable that the followers of Jesus formed a community in the city at that time of sufficient importance to attract public attention and the ill-feeling of the people. It isn't the most popular way to convert and bring people into their religion.
• (7) The victims could not have been given to the flames in the gardens of Nero, as Tacitus allegedly said. According to another account by Tacitus these gardens were the refuge of those whose homes had been burned and were full of tents and wooden sheds. Why would he risk burning these by lighting human fires amidst all these shelters?
• (8) According to Tacitus, Nero was in Antium, not Rome, when the fire occurred.
• (9) The blood-curdling story about the frightful orgies of Nero reads like some Christian romance of the Dark Ages and not like Tacitus. Suetonius, while mercilessly condemning the reign of Nero, says that in his public entertainments Nero took particular care that no lives should be sacrificed, "not even those of condemned criminals."
• (10) It is highly unlikely that he mingled with the crowd and feasted his eyes on the ghastly spectacle. Tacitus tells us in his life of Agricola that Nero had crimes committed, but kept his own eyes off them.
• (11) Some authorities allege that the passage in Tacitus could not have been interpolated because his style of writing could not have been copied. But this argument is without merit since there is no "inimitable" style for the clever forger, and the more unususal, distinctive, and peculiar a style is, like that of Tacitus, the easier it is to imitate. Moreover, as far as the historicity of Jesus is concerned we are, perhaps, interested only in one sentence of the passage and that has nothing distinctively Tacitan about it.
• (12) Tacitus is assumed to have written this about 117 A.D., about 80 years after the death of Jesus, when Christianity was already an organized religion with a settled tradition. The gospels, or at least 3 of them, are supposed to have been in existence. Hence Tacitus might have derived his information about Jesus, if not directly from the gospels, indirectly from them by means of oral tradition. This is the view of Dupuis, who wrote: "Tacitus says what the legend said." In 117 A.D. Tacitus could only know about Christ by what reached him from Christian or intermediate circles. He merely reproduced rumors.
• (13) In no other part of his writings did Tacitus make the least allusion to "Christ" or "Christians." Christus was a very common name, as was Jesus, in fact Jospehus lists about 20 in the time Jesus was supposedly said to have existed.
• (14) Tacitus is also made to say that the Christians took their denomination from Christ which could apply to any of the so-called Christs who were put to death in Judea, including Christ Jesus.
• (15) The worshippers of the Sun-god Serapis were also called "Christians." Serapis or Osiris had a large following at Rome especially among the common people.
• (18) The expression "Christians" which Tacitus applies to the followers of Jesus, was by no means common in the time of Nero. Not a single Greek or Roman writer of the first century mentions the name. The Christians who called themselves Jessaeans, Nazoraeans, the Elect, the Saints, the Faithful, etc. were universally regarded as Jews. They observed the Mosaic law and the people could not distinguish them from the other Jews. The Greek word Christus (the anointed) for Messiah, and the derivative word, Christian, first came into use under Trajan in the time of Tacitus. Even then, however, the word Christus could not mean Jesus of Nazareth. All the Jews without exception looked forward to a Christus or Messiah. It is, therefore, not clear how the fact of being a "Christian" could, in the time of Nero or of Tacitus, distinguish the followers of Jesus from other believers in a Christus or Messiah. Not one of the gospels applies the name Christians to the followers of Jesus. It is never used in the New Testament as a description of themselves by the believers in Jesus.
• (19) Most scholars admit that the works of Tacitus have not been preserved with any degree of fidelity.
• (20) This passage which could have served Christian writers better than any other writing of Tacitus, is not quoted by any of the Christian Fathers. It is not quoted by Tertullian, though he often quoted the works of Tacitus. Tertullian's arguments called for the use of this passage with so loud a voice that his omission of it, if it had really existed, amounted to a violent improbability.
• (21) Eusebius in the 4th century cited all the evidence of Christianity obtained from Jewish and pagan sources but makes no mention of Tacitus.
• (22) This passage is not quoted by Clement of Alexandria who at the beginning of the 3rd century set himself entirely to the work of adducing and bringing together all the admissions and recognitions which pagan authors had made of the existence of Christ Jesus or Christians before his time.
• (23) Origen in his controversy with Celsus would undoubtedly have used it had it existed.
• (24) There is no vestige or trace of this passage anywhere in the world before the 15th century. Its use as part of the evidences of the Christian religion is absolutely modern. Although no reference whatever is made to it by any writer or historian, monkish or otherwise, before the 15th century (1468 A.D.), after that time it is quoted or referred to in an endless list of works including by your supposed historian.
• (25) The fidelity of the passage rests entirely upon the fidelity of one individual (first published in a copy of the annals of Tacitus in the year 1468 by Johannes de Spire of Venice who took his imprint of it from a single manuscript) who would have every opportunity and inducement to insert such an interpolation.
• (26) In all the Roman records there was to be found no evidence that Christ was put to death by Pontius Pilate. If genuine, such a sentence would be the most important evidence in pagan literature. How could it have been overlooked for 1360 years?
• (27) And lastly, the style of the passage is not consistent with the usually mild and classic language of Tacitus
All of these are either just plain wrong or bogus.
(1) No one says Tacitus needed a “special report” to get this information.
(2) I have answered http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html#tacmult
(3) is simply false. According to the Roman law for arson, being burned was the proper punishment, in line with what was prescribed in the Ten Tables.
(4) and (5) are completely false as I show in The Impossible Faith, and as has been verified by sources like Wilken’s The Christians as the Romans Saw Them.
(6) is merely asserted with no basis whatsoever.
(7) is stupid. As if ancient people were too stupid to keep fires contained! Even assuming this cite to be correct, fire was always needed for light at night and for cooking.
(8) doesn’t even give us any reason to accept or reject anything about the matter.
(9) is a baloney sandwich. This was no "public entertainment," and the source provides no cite. An alert reader pointed me to a passage in Suey's De Vita Caesarum section XII, which is probably the source: "These plays he viewed from the top of the proscenium. At the gladiatorial show, which he gave in a wooden amphitheatre, erected in the district of the Campus Martius within the space of a single year [58 C.E. -- added by editor], he had no one put to death, not even criminals." This refers, yes, only to public entertainment, and to only one particular year and place, which was before Nero went totally cuckoo
(10) is irrelevant, since nothing Tacitus says intimates that he mingled with the crowd.
(11) is just conspiratorial hucksterism and finds no grounds in serious and credible Tacitean scholars.
(12) is answered by http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html#tacrel
(13) is part 1 irrelevant (so what if he only mentions Christ or Christians once?) and one would like to ask how many people named Christus who were founders of a movement were crucified in Palestine by Pilate.
(14) neglects the point that there were NO other persons called “Christ” in the first century – only messianic pretenders who never took or earned the name.
(15) Bogus. Tacitus connects the Christians with a specific person in Judea, and wrote about the worshippers of Serapis elsewhere; his care for accuracy mitigates against such confusion as suggested. An alert reader has informed me that the ultimate source for this argument is a work by Robert Taylor called the Diegesis, which quotes an alleged letter of Emperor Hadrian to his brother-in-law Servianus, which states:
Egypt...I have found to be wholly fickle and inconsistent, and continually wafted about every breath of fame. The worshippers of Serapis are called Christians, and those who are devoted to the god Serapis, call themselves bishops of Christ.
I have found this cite thrown around uncritically a lot on the Internet, but you won't hear about the problems with it. First, it is generally dated around 134 AD -- much too late to prove what people like Dorkins want it to prove. Second, there is more to the quote: It goes on to speak of rulers of Jewish synagogues, Samaritans, and presbyters of the church, and Hadrian says that there are none of these "who is not either an astrologer, a soothsayer, or a minister to obscene pleasures," and though they proclaim allegiance to either Serapis or Christ, their only real god is money. Hardian's complaint is about a syncretistic, huckster environment and offers no evidence of a bona fide use of the term "Christian" by Serapis-worshippers. Finally, there are many problems with the authenticity of this letter: An authority as liberal as Walter Bauer (who would have loved to have made hash of this letter for his case for a diverse Christianity) notes that this letter is actually quoted by Flavius Vopiscus (a historian writing in 300 AD!), who in turn is said to be quoting Phlegon, a freedman of Hadrian (and what do skeptics always tell us about using sources this far from the root?!?); Bauer himself says the letter is of "uncertain value" and regards it as "spurious." (See Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christianity.)
(18) No 16 or 17? No one says “Christians” was a self-applied label. It is applied in Acts by the pagans to follows of Jesus. Dorkins does not name any first century writer who ought to have mentioned Christians. If it is not clear how the fact of being a "Christian" could, in the time of Nero or of Tacitus, distinguish the followers of Jesus from other believers in a Christus or Messiah may I suggest that things like being shamefully crucified and resurrected might have a lot to do with it as far as differentiation..
(19) is merely a distraction. No Greco-Roman scholar says that this passage was interfered with or interpolated.
(20)(21)(22)(23) therefore are beaten as well, though I’d add that Dork doesn’t explain to us what good this passage would have done someone like Tertullian, Eusebius, etc. in any particular argument they made.
(24) and (25) are way out of date, as Roger Pearse has noted. The earliest mss. of this passage is now from the 11th century. Mr. Expert sure keeps up, doesn’t he?
(26) is bogus because there are no Roman records left from offices of provincial governors like Pilate, or any matter.
(27) is simply false. The passage is in perfect Tacitean style.
Well, anyway, if Dork wants to debate, we have an idea. We can do a cohost routine with the debate featured both here and on his piddly little forum, with answers from both sides appearing in both places.
Dork starts by linking his readers over to the usual tiny list of people who have actually tried writing rebuttals to me. Of course I have answered each of these already, but he doesn’t seem to know that:
G.A. Wells: http://www.tektonics.org/uz/wellsga01.html
Richard Carrier: http://www.tektonics.org/qt/rubicon.html (more than one part)
Ebon Musings: several places, but mainly http://www.tektonics.org/af/ebon01.html
Jim “The Lip” Lippard: within http://www.tektoonics.com/parody/brooksbonked.html
Paul Jacobsen: There’s a debate here on TWeb at http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=320269
Farrell Till: Need I say more? http://www.tektonics.org/TK-T.html under his name
Daffy Duck: http://www.tektoonics.com/parody/daffywhacked.html
Robert M. Price: http://www.tektonics.org/lp/nowayjose_CC3.html
I mean, don’t these guys ever check to see if I’ve responded before they post this stuff?
Anyway, after that temper tantrum Dork goes on to address my anti-blog notes of July about this subject. Other than a lot of wah wah Holding is such a meanie unworthy of a debate with a genius like me stuff, we get to where I ask:
But note here, that RR doesn't seem to really know what it is they want us to prove. Do they want us to prove that a certain man named Jesus walked the earth (regardless of what else he did), or that he walked the earth AND did all these things like walking on water?
And Dork says:
Either one. Either is improvable (sic) due to the fact that there is no evidence. And either one will refute the existence of Jesus. The fact that a man named Jesus could have existed without all the miracles and power refutes Christianity – as he couldn't have been the savior, and hence once that belief is gone – Christianity would be just as useless.
Although if you know something about Mythicism (which you don't) you'd know the Mythicist position is that Christ was not historical, yet was euhemerized later by a growing orthodox denomination.
I know that very well, thanks, and it doesn’t make any difference to the question I asked. But at least now, several months later, we know what they’re on about.
I say:
Is this a simple question of historicity of a person, or is it more? RR's bulletin flips between the two like a Mexican jumping bean on a griddle.
He says:
Nice radical analogy there, got any more stereotypes?
Steroetypes? Of what? Mexican jumping beans? Is Dork gonna contact the Mexican Jumping Bean Anti-Defamation League?
I say:
In addition, what's with the notion that evidence has to be contemporary with the subject to be of any use?
Dork says:
Because of the maxim "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence". If somebody told you they witnessed a flying monkey with pink polka dots, would you just accept that evidence or would you demand more?
Um, well, aside from the fact that that maxim was invented by Carl Sagan, and isn’t recognized as a legal principle in courts of law, and has been refuted by critics of Hume like Earman, there’s nothing “extraordinary” about the idea that a man named Jesus existed and was the founder of a movement that became Christianity. Furthermore, the original complaint was only that the data was not contemporary, not that the thing described was incredible. So basically, Dork here is trying to justify his idiotic argument by changing it.
I say:
Historians from the ancient and the modern world wrote/write most of their material about things that happened before they were born. What's the deal here?
Dork says:
You apparently don't know who Philo and Josephus were. Or Pliny the Elder. Or Pliny the Younger, all of whom wrote of their time period as well as the past. What of Paul who also wrote of his time period? Or Clement? You are confusing historians as people who only write and document the past.
I have no idea what Dork is on about here, but he seems to be on drugs. I know these people wrote about their own times and about the past. That’s my point. Is Dork just going to wave off what Josephus wrote about stuff before he lived? I made this clear in my next point, even for the most stupid, when I said
If Tacitus was born in (say) 63 AD, then anything he says from 62 AD or before is down the loo automatically?
And missing my point, Dork repsonds:
Of course not. But if Seutonius said something contradicting Tacitus, historians today would hold that passage suspect. It's called analyzing the evidence. Apparently you are unaware of this process.
Whatever that has to do with anything. There aren’t any ancient writers who say Jesus did not exist; indeed even hostile writers say he did, and even say he did miracles (as Celsus does), so what’s the point here? What’s Dorky smoking?
Dorky excuses RR’s challenge asking for contemporary accounts by saying:
The contest is more of a tool of education, to show people who think there are accounts out there that there really isn't. And to get people to do independent studying, and not just rely on poorly researched websites with a string bias like yours.
In other words, RR offered a bogus contest. That’s illegal, isn’t it? In any event we don’t have much beyond a snotty nose to tell us how it is that a writer has to be “contemporary” to have his testimony accepted. Dork goes on about debating me on Gospel dates:
If you actually had something substantial with to date the Gospels.
I do: http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html
And what of Luke-Acts constantly references Josephus? I bet you're going to try and tell me that Josephus wrote in the early-mid first century?
Um, no. http://www.tektonics.org/lp/lukeandjoe.html The claims connections are bogus.
You're no historian, although you like to think you are. That's why Richard Carrier will have nothing to do with you, and the likes also of Robert Price also ignore you? Because you are a fraud.
Um, didn’t Dork just link to articles by Price and Carrier that have been “ignoring” me? :huh:
Anyway, I then go on to list 5 candidates and talk about how easy it is to beat their second offer, and Dorky says with a cringe:
This is why Sapient removed the second price. Sapient was unaware until Carrier and I explained to him why it is futile to have the second part of the contest. So now we only have one. What this shows is our honesty. We aren't just sticking with the second prize even though we know it is a false claim. We are honest enough to remove that part.
And again, Sapient is not the Historical expert. I am.
So I guess what this amounts to is:
1) RR members don’t talk to each other, or experts, before they do stupid stuff like this.
2) It is “honest” to do something stupid like this.
Sounds good to me. On to July 7 comments, past more rah rah. Dork claims I didn’t read the RR thread on this but fails to explain how this is so. Here’s a laugh. I said
provided in the Analects suggest a date within 25 years. Oh? In that case, we can use the Gospels, because even the wild-eyed Jesus Seminar is willing to trace some of what's in the Gospels back to Jesus, no?
And Dork says:
And amazingly the Gospels they trace back are from the Gnostics. None of the Synoptics. And I bet you Dr. Price would have a bit to say to you about that.
Um – what? The Seminar used the four canonical Gospels plus Thomas, so they used only ONE from Gnostics. Hello? Then we have this admission that needs no comment:
Carrier is the one, actually, who made Sapient reevaluate the second prize. I did have a bit of an edge, but Carrier was the one who showed Sapient that there are a lot of characters assumed to be historical with mentioned sometimes hundreds of years after they have died. The difference here, however, is clearly described in debates listed in my "Jesus Mythicist Campaign" forum.
Uh huh. On to July 8. Dork claims he didn’t get the email I copy in this entry, which of course he would not – it was to ME about something posted in the RR board. Then d for some reason wishes to make the point that “Judas the Galilean is not the same as Judas Iscariot, unless you want to claim that Judas Iscariot started his own sect of Judaism in the Gospels?” I have no idea what drugs this man takes, because all the letter says is:
I actually posted some of these suggestions on the “Rational Responders” discussion board. I was promptly informed that “biblical figures” did not count because the Bible is not trustworthy. (Nevermind that this is the usual skeptic play of treating the Bible as one monolithic source when it is in fact a collection of often independent sources of different genres and time periods). When I pointed out that figures such as John the Baptist and Judas the Galilean were well established by non-biblical sources, I was told that it did not matter because they wanted to “whittle” the number of possibilities down. Biblical figures, even those whose existence is not disputed and is established by non-biblical sources, would not be considered for the contest. This made no sense.
I have no idea what this has to do with Judas Iscariot. But then more excuses:
It's important to note that Brian Sapient is not the Historical expert in the group. I am. And I did not issue that first challenge. He did. The RRS consists of three core members. One is the scientist (actually is a scientist), Mike. Brian Sapient is the philosophy guy and general fill in. And I am the ancient texts expert (not self-proclaiming) and historian of the group. I am sure that if Sapient got an e-mail like this, he would have forwarded it to me. But I did not receive one, or I would have replied to it then.
Well, again, it was an email to me about something on RR’s board, not an email to him. But this is Mr. Expert talking.
Dork goes on to say he’ll accept my debate challenge if I do it his way:
His cronie "AtheismSucks" told me that I'm a coward, however, for not debating on an "unbias" forum with a moderator. The problem is no forum is "unbias" and Holding is only smart on the interweb because he can plagerize and use time to internet search something. On the air, he can be exposed, so he won't come on the air with me to see who really knows more.
Um, yeah. So consulting scholars is “plagerizing” and doing research proves you don’t know more. :huh: No, Dork knows good and well he’d get his bottom tanned in a written debate, because he doesn’t have any critical capacity to do research and answer hard arguments. More on why below when we see a sample of his “expertise”.On air, he can use profanity and “hurl the elephant” knowing there won’t be time to correct all of his errors.
So what kind of expert is Dork, anyway? He’s actually an expert at uncritically swallowing what 19th century freethinkers said without any documentation or expertise. This is shown in how he treats the Tacitus reference. All of his responses are taken from the likes of Remsberg, not modern Greco-Roman scholars. Thus:
It would be utterly ridiculous to use this, but still, some do.
• (1) It is extremely improbable that a special report found by Tacitus had been sent earlier to Rome and incorporated into the records of the Senate, in regard to the death of a Jewish provincial, Jesus. The execution of a Nazareth carpenter would have been one of the most insignificant events conceivable among the movements of Roman history in those decades; it would have completely disappeared beneath the innumerable executions inflicted by Roman provincial authorities. For it to have been kept in any report would have been a most remarkable instance of chance.
• (2) The phrase "multitudo ingens" which means "a great number" is opposed to all that we know of the spread of the new faith in Rome at the time. A vast multitude in 64 A.D.? There were not more than a few thousand Christians 200 years later. The idea of so many just 30 years after his supposed death is just a falsehood.
• (3) The use of the Christians as "living torches," as Tacitus describes, and all the other atrocities that were committed against them, have little title to credence, and suggest an imagination exalted by reading stories of the later Christian martyrs. Death by fire was not a punishment inflicted at Rome in the time of Nero. It is opposed to the moderate principles on which the accused were then dealt with by the State.
• (4) The Roman authorities can have had no reason to inflict special punishment on the new faith. How could the non-initiated Romans know what were the concerns of a comparatively small religious sect, which was connected with Judaism and must have seemed to the impartial observer wholly identical with it.
• (5) Suetonius says that Nero showed the utmost indifference, even contempt in regard to religious sects. Even afterwards the Christians were not persecuted for their faith, but for political reasons, for their contempt of the Roman state and emperor, and as disturbers of the unity and peace of the empire. What reason can Nero have had to proceed against the Christians, hardly distinguishable from the Jews, as a new and criminal sect?
• (6) It is inconceivable that the followers of Jesus formed a community in the city at that time of sufficient importance to attract public attention and the ill-feeling of the people. It isn't the most popular way to convert and bring people into their religion.
• (7) The victims could not have been given to the flames in the gardens of Nero, as Tacitus allegedly said. According to another account by Tacitus these gardens were the refuge of those whose homes had been burned and were full of tents and wooden sheds. Why would he risk burning these by lighting human fires amidst all these shelters?
• (8) According to Tacitus, Nero was in Antium, not Rome, when the fire occurred.
• (9) The blood-curdling story about the frightful orgies of Nero reads like some Christian romance of the Dark Ages and not like Tacitus. Suetonius, while mercilessly condemning the reign of Nero, says that in his public entertainments Nero took particular care that no lives should be sacrificed, "not even those of condemned criminals."
• (10) It is highly unlikely that he mingled with the crowd and feasted his eyes on the ghastly spectacle. Tacitus tells us in his life of Agricola that Nero had crimes committed, but kept his own eyes off them.
• (11) Some authorities allege that the passage in Tacitus could not have been interpolated because his style of writing could not have been copied. But this argument is without merit since there is no "inimitable" style for the clever forger, and the more unususal, distinctive, and peculiar a style is, like that of Tacitus, the easier it is to imitate. Moreover, as far as the historicity of Jesus is concerned we are, perhaps, interested only in one sentence of the passage and that has nothing distinctively Tacitan about it.
• (12) Tacitus is assumed to have written this about 117 A.D., about 80 years after the death of Jesus, when Christianity was already an organized religion with a settled tradition. The gospels, or at least 3 of them, are supposed to have been in existence. Hence Tacitus might have derived his information about Jesus, if not directly from the gospels, indirectly from them by means of oral tradition. This is the view of Dupuis, who wrote: "Tacitus says what the legend said." In 117 A.D. Tacitus could only know about Christ by what reached him from Christian or intermediate circles. He merely reproduced rumors.
• (13) In no other part of his writings did Tacitus make the least allusion to "Christ" or "Christians." Christus was a very common name, as was Jesus, in fact Jospehus lists about 20 in the time Jesus was supposedly said to have existed.
• (14) Tacitus is also made to say that the Christians took their denomination from Christ which could apply to any of the so-called Christs who were put to death in Judea, including Christ Jesus.
• (15) The worshippers of the Sun-god Serapis were also called "Christians." Serapis or Osiris had a large following at Rome especially among the common people.
• (18) The expression "Christians" which Tacitus applies to the followers of Jesus, was by no means common in the time of Nero. Not a single Greek or Roman writer of the first century mentions the name. The Christians who called themselves Jessaeans, Nazoraeans, the Elect, the Saints, the Faithful, etc. were universally regarded as Jews. They observed the Mosaic law and the people could not distinguish them from the other Jews. The Greek word Christus (the anointed) for Messiah, and the derivative word, Christian, first came into use under Trajan in the time of Tacitus. Even then, however, the word Christus could not mean Jesus of Nazareth. All the Jews without exception looked forward to a Christus or Messiah. It is, therefore, not clear how the fact of being a "Christian" could, in the time of Nero or of Tacitus, distinguish the followers of Jesus from other believers in a Christus or Messiah. Not one of the gospels applies the name Christians to the followers of Jesus. It is never used in the New Testament as a description of themselves by the believers in Jesus.
• (19) Most scholars admit that the works of Tacitus have not been preserved with any degree of fidelity.
• (20) This passage which could have served Christian writers better than any other writing of Tacitus, is not quoted by any of the Christian Fathers. It is not quoted by Tertullian, though he often quoted the works of Tacitus. Tertullian's arguments called for the use of this passage with so loud a voice that his omission of it, if it had really existed, amounted to a violent improbability.
• (21) Eusebius in the 4th century cited all the evidence of Christianity obtained from Jewish and pagan sources but makes no mention of Tacitus.
• (22) This passage is not quoted by Clement of Alexandria who at the beginning of the 3rd century set himself entirely to the work of adducing and bringing together all the admissions and recognitions which pagan authors had made of the existence of Christ Jesus or Christians before his time.
• (23) Origen in his controversy with Celsus would undoubtedly have used it had it existed.
• (24) There is no vestige or trace of this passage anywhere in the world before the 15th century. Its use as part of the evidences of the Christian religion is absolutely modern. Although no reference whatever is made to it by any writer or historian, monkish or otherwise, before the 15th century (1468 A.D.), after that time it is quoted or referred to in an endless list of works including by your supposed historian.
• (25) The fidelity of the passage rests entirely upon the fidelity of one individual (first published in a copy of the annals of Tacitus in the year 1468 by Johannes de Spire of Venice who took his imprint of it from a single manuscript) who would have every opportunity and inducement to insert such an interpolation.
• (26) In all the Roman records there was to be found no evidence that Christ was put to death by Pontius Pilate. If genuine, such a sentence would be the most important evidence in pagan literature. How could it have been overlooked for 1360 years?
• (27) And lastly, the style of the passage is not consistent with the usually mild and classic language of Tacitus
All of these are either just plain wrong or bogus.
(1) No one says Tacitus needed a “special report” to get this information.
(2) I have answered http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html#tacmult
(3) is simply false. According to the Roman law for arson, being burned was the proper punishment, in line with what was prescribed in the Ten Tables.
(4) and (5) are completely false as I show in The Impossible Faith, and as has been verified by sources like Wilken’s The Christians as the Romans Saw Them.
(6) is merely asserted with no basis whatsoever.
(7) is stupid. As if ancient people were too stupid to keep fires contained! Even assuming this cite to be correct, fire was always needed for light at night and for cooking.
(8) doesn’t even give us any reason to accept or reject anything about the matter.
(9) is a baloney sandwich. This was no "public entertainment," and the source provides no cite. An alert reader pointed me to a passage in Suey's De Vita Caesarum section XII, which is probably the source: "These plays he viewed from the top of the proscenium. At the gladiatorial show, which he gave in a wooden amphitheatre, erected in the district of the Campus Martius within the space of a single year [58 C.E. -- added by editor], he had no one put to death, not even criminals." This refers, yes, only to public entertainment, and to only one particular year and place, which was before Nero went totally cuckoo
(10) is irrelevant, since nothing Tacitus says intimates that he mingled with the crowd.
(11) is just conspiratorial hucksterism and finds no grounds in serious and credible Tacitean scholars.
(12) is answered by http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html#tacrel
(13) is part 1 irrelevant (so what if he only mentions Christ or Christians once?) and one would like to ask how many people named Christus who were founders of a movement were crucified in Palestine by Pilate.
(14) neglects the point that there were NO other persons called “Christ” in the first century – only messianic pretenders who never took or earned the name.
(15) Bogus. Tacitus connects the Christians with a specific person in Judea, and wrote about the worshippers of Serapis elsewhere; his care for accuracy mitigates against such confusion as suggested. An alert reader has informed me that the ultimate source for this argument is a work by Robert Taylor called the Diegesis, which quotes an alleged letter of Emperor Hadrian to his brother-in-law Servianus, which states:
Egypt...I have found to be wholly fickle and inconsistent, and continually wafted about every breath of fame. The worshippers of Serapis are called Christians, and those who are devoted to the god Serapis, call themselves bishops of Christ.
I have found this cite thrown around uncritically a lot on the Internet, but you won't hear about the problems with it. First, it is generally dated around 134 AD -- much too late to prove what people like Dorkins want it to prove. Second, there is more to the quote: It goes on to speak of rulers of Jewish synagogues, Samaritans, and presbyters of the church, and Hadrian says that there are none of these "who is not either an astrologer, a soothsayer, or a minister to obscene pleasures," and though they proclaim allegiance to either Serapis or Christ, their only real god is money. Hardian's complaint is about a syncretistic, huckster environment and offers no evidence of a bona fide use of the term "Christian" by Serapis-worshippers. Finally, there are many problems with the authenticity of this letter: An authority as liberal as Walter Bauer (who would have loved to have made hash of this letter for his case for a diverse Christianity) notes that this letter is actually quoted by Flavius Vopiscus (a historian writing in 300 AD!), who in turn is said to be quoting Phlegon, a freedman of Hadrian (and what do skeptics always tell us about using sources this far from the root?!?); Bauer himself says the letter is of "uncertain value" and regards it as "spurious." (See Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christianity.)
(18) No 16 or 17? No one says “Christians” was a self-applied label. It is applied in Acts by the pagans to follows of Jesus. Dorkins does not name any first century writer who ought to have mentioned Christians. If it is not clear how the fact of being a "Christian" could, in the time of Nero or of Tacitus, distinguish the followers of Jesus from other believers in a Christus or Messiah may I suggest that things like being shamefully crucified and resurrected might have a lot to do with it as far as differentiation..
(19) is merely a distraction. No Greco-Roman scholar says that this passage was interfered with or interpolated.
(20)(21)(22)(23) therefore are beaten as well, though I’d add that Dork doesn’t explain to us what good this passage would have done someone like Tertullian, Eusebius, etc. in any particular argument they made.
(24) and (25) are way out of date, as Roger Pearse has noted. The earliest mss. of this passage is now from the 11th century. Mr. Expert sure keeps up, doesn’t he?
(26) is bogus because there are no Roman records left from offices of provincial governors like Pilate, or any matter.
(27) is simply false. The passage is in perfect Tacitean style.
Well, anyway, if Dork wants to debate, we have an idea. We can do a cohost routine with the debate featured both here and on his piddly little forum, with answers from both sides appearing in both places.