Flavius Josephus the only written Doc's confirming existence of Jesus, or a later Christian addition???

Question

REMEMBER THAT ALL WE HAVE ARE LATER 4TH AND 5TH CENTURY COPIES OF HIS WORK, SUBJECT TO THE WHIM AND CHANGE OF ANY COPYING SCRIBE MONK OR PRIEST. THERE IS GREAT DEBATE OVER WHEATHER OR NOT THE PASSAGE IS LEGITIMATE. WHILE I KNOW WE CAN'T SOLVE THE MYSTERY WITH OUR DISCUSSION, TO THINK WE COULD IS REDICULOUS, BUT WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE MATTER. WHY IS IT THAT ALL WE'VE ENDED UP WITH, FOR ANY PROOF OF JESUS, IS THIS VERY SUBJECT PASSAGE?

LAZY PEOPLE WRITE IN CAPS, IT'S AMERICA DUDE

http://members.aol.com/fljosephus/home.htm
http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS/life.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavius_Josephus

I DON'T SAY YEAH OR NAY EITHER WAY ON THE SUBJECT, BUT AS FOR THE BIBLE, TAKE THE GOSPELS FOR EXAMPLE, WRITTEN ALMOST A CENTURY AFTER THE SUPPOSED FACT, THIRD HAND? COME ON? AND THEN THE FACT THE STORY OF JESUS AND THE HAPPENINGS THE BEFELL HIM, THE MIRACLES HE PREFORMED, HIS BIRTH, HIS LIFE, HIS DEATH, ALL RECYCLED FROM OLDER PAGAN STORIES. OLDER THAN BOTH OF THE WRITERS IN DISCUSSION HERE. THE BIBLE AS A RELIABLE SOURCE OF WHAT AGAIN?

CHRISTIANS GAINED NOTORIETY BY BEING UTTERLY PERSECUTED BY NERO AND MOTHER ROME. THEY PUT CHRISTIANS IN THE SPOT LIGHT. NERO USED CHRISTIANS AS HUMAN LIGHT TORCHES FOR HIS PERSONAL DINNER PARTIES. THAT WAS THE NICEST THING HE DID. DO YOU THINK THE CHURCH WAS KIDDING WHEN IT SAYS THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH ARE LITERALLY COVERED IN BLOOD. ROME AS YOU KNOW WAS A MELTING POT OF CULTURES, A PERFECT SPRING BOARD TO TURN A EMBER INTO AN INFERNO TO SPREAD ACROSS THE EMPIRE. IT'S NOT HARD TO CONVER THE MASSES WHEN YOU HAVE SAY A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE OF THE COLLISUEM WITNESSING CHRISTIANS BEING DEVOURED ALIVE. IT WASN'T JESUS PERSE', IT WAS HIS FOLLOWERS THAT CONVERTED PEOPLE. AND BY THE WAY, THE OTHER GODS OF ANTIQUITY, OLDER THAN JESUS THAT SHARE HIS STORY, SUCH AS HORUS, MITHRA, APPOLLONIUS AND OTHERS, ALL LIVED ON EARTH ACCORDING TO THE FOLLOWERS OF THOSE RELIGIONS AS WELL. SO ARE THEY ALL RIGHT AS WELL? OR ARE WE ALL WRONG?

ALL YOUR OTHER MENTIONED TEXTS ARE WAY AFTER THE FACT AND SUBJECT TO CHRISTIAN FLARE.

YOU CAN'T DISMISS THE FACT THAT ALL THE TEXT'S OF THE BIBLE WERE WRITTEN ALMOST A CENTURY AFTER THE SUPPOSED FACT AND WERE WRITTEN IN THIRD HAND ACCOUNT. SO AN ACCURATE COPY OF A THIRD HAND ACCOUNT IS GOOD FOR WHAT EXACTLY?

Answer 1

ABSOLUTELY MAN! TOTAL SHAM! MESSIAH WASN'T A WORD THAT WAS USED! BRILLIANT QUESTION! FINALLY, SOME BRAINS!

Answer 2

Dude, stop with the all caps....

Most scholars agree that the section referring to jesus was added later...

Edit: OK, that's cool then... Rock on!!!

Answer 3

Where did you get this information?

Answer 4

Is there historical and scientific proof of Jesus?

It is interesting that when people seek historic and scientific proof of Jesus, they immediately discount the Bible as a reliable source.

If we look at the Bible simply as a historic document, it should be among the most reliable on record compared with others.

Historians routinely cite Herodotus as a key source of information. He wrote from 488 B.C. to 428 B.C. and the earliest copy of his work comes from 900 A.D. (1,300 years later). There are only eight known copies of his work.

By contrast, the New Testament of the Bible (with all its information about Jesus) was written between 40 A.D. and 100 A.D. The earliest known copy is from 130 A.D. and there are 5,000 known copies in Greek, 10,000 in Latin and 9,300 in other languages.

Still, to put to rest the notion that there is no historic and scientific proof of Jesus outside the Bible, we may look to Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and to Roman historian Carius Cornelius Tacitus - both well known and accepted.

Josephus, in the book Jewish Antiquities" wrote:

"At that time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. . . .And when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adhere to him. For on the third day he appeared to them alive again, the divine prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things concerning him. And the sect of the Christians, so called from him, subsists at this time" (Antiquities, Book 18, Chapter 3, Section 1).

Tacitus, in writing about accusations that Nero burned the city of Rome and blamed it on Christians, said the following:

". . .Nero procured others to be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishment upon those people, who were in abhorrence for their crimes, and were commonly known by the name of Christians. They had their denomination from Christus (Christ, dm.), who in the reign of Tibertius was put to death as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate. . . .At first they were only apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect; afterwards a vast multitude discovered by them, all of which were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind. . . ." (Tacitus, Annals, 15, 44).

There are some independent, non-biblical books that mention the historical Jesus. Historian Edwin Yamauchi calls attention to the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament. This proof comes from Tacitus, a Roman, who wrote that the Christians were responsible for the fire that destroyed Rome in A.D. 64. He believed that Christ had died under extreme execution during the reign of Pontius Pilatus. Yet, he stated that Christ's death briefly checked "a most mischievous superstition," which arose, not only in Judea, but also in Rome. He is bearing indirect testimony to the conviction of the early church that Christ who had been crucified had risen from the grave. This would explain the bizarre occurrence of a rapidly growing religion based on the worship of a man who had been crucified as a criminal. How do you explain that?

Another source of evidence about Jesus is found in the letters of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. He asks Emperor Trajan about various ways to conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians. He did some research regarding these Christians and this is what he came up with: They met on a certain fixed day before it was light and sang hymns to Christ, as to a god. Unlike other gods who were worshipped, Christ was a person who had lived on earth. They bound themselves by a solemn oath to not participate in any wicked deeds, and never to commit fraud, theft, adultery, falsify their word, or deny a trust. These early Christians believed he was a real person and they held his teachings in the highest esteem. They also bound themselves to a higher oath to not violate various moral standards which is the source of the ethical teachings of Jesus.

There is also a collection of Jewish rabbinical writings that give a few clear references to Jesus called the Babylonian Talmud written approximately A.D. 70-500. The most significant reference from this period states, "On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald. . .cried, 'He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.'" The name, Yeshu, is actually the name, Jesus, in Hebrew. However, upon reading the passage, we know for a fact that Jesus was not hanged, but that He was crucified, but the word, "hanged" serves as a synonym for "crucified." And what about the statement that Jesus was to be stoned? This could indicate that the Jewish leaders were planning to do just that, but the Roman Government intervened on those plans.

Another source of writings comes from Lucian of Samosata who was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his writings, he notes as follows: "The Christians…worship a man to this day - the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws."

We know the man Lucian is writing of, and that man is Jesus. What did Jesus do to arouse such wrath? He taught men are brothers from the moment of conversion which means denying Greek gods, worshipping Jesus, and living according to His teachings.

As we can see, these writings corroborate our knowledge of Jesus from the gospels.

__________-

In considering the New Testament we have tens of thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in part or in whole, dating from the second century A.D. to the late fifteenth century, when the printing press was invented. These manuscripts have been found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, making collusion unlikely. The oldest manuscript, the John Rylands manuscript, has been dated to 125 A.D. and was found in Egypt, some distance from where the New Testament was originally composed in Asia Minor). Many early Christian papyri, discovered in 1935, have been dated to 150 A.D., and include the four gospels. The Papyrus Bodmer II, discovered in 1956, has been dated to 200 A.D., and contains 14 chapters and portions of the last seven chapters of the gospel of John. The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, discovered in 1931, has been dated to 200-250 A.D. and contains the Gospels, Acts, Paul's Epistles, and Revelation. The number of manuscripts is extensive compared to other ancient historical writings, such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" (10 Greek manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), the "Annals" of Tacitus (2 manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), Livy (20 manuscripts, the earliest 350 years after the original), and Plato (7 manuscripts).

Thousands of early Christian writings and lexionaries (first and second century) cite verses from the New Testament. In fact, it is nearly possible to put together the entire New Testament just from early Christian writings. For example, the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (dated 95 A.D.) cites verses from the Gospels, Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. The letters of Ignatius (dated 115 A.D.) were written to several churches in Asia Minor and cites verses from Matthew, John, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus. These letters indicate that the entire New Testament was written in the first century A.D. In addition, there is internal evidence for a first century date for the writing of the New Testament. The book of Acts ends abruptly with Paul in prison, awaiting trial (Acts 28:30-31 (1)). It is likely that Luke wrote Acts during this time, before Paul finally appeared before Nero. This would be about 62-63 A.D., meaning that Acts and Luke were written within thirty years of ministry and death of Jesus. Another internal evidence is that there is no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Although Matthew, Mark and Luke record Jesus' prophecy that the temple and city would be destroyed within that generation (Matthew 24:1-2 (2),Mark 13:1-2 (3), Luke 21:5-9,20-24,32(4)), no New Testament book refers to this event as having happened. If they had been written after 70 A.D., it is likely that letters written after 70 A.D. would have mentioned the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy. As stated by Nelson Glueck, former president of the Jewish Theological Seminary in the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and renowned Jewish archaeologist, "In my opinion, every book of the New Testament was written between the forties and eighties of the first century A.D."

With all of the massive manuscript evidence you would think there would be massive discrepancies - just the opposite is true. New Testament manuscripts agree in 99.5% of the text (compared to only 95% for the Iliad). Most of the discrepancies are in spelling and word order. A few words have been changed or added. There are two passages that are disputed but no discrepancy is of any doctrinal significance (i.e., none would alter basic Christian doctrine). Most Bibles include the options as footnotes when there are discrepancies. How could there be such accuracy over a period of 1,400 years of copying? Two reasons: The scribes that did the copying had meticulous methods for checking their copies for errors. 2) The Holy Spirit made sure we would have an accurate copy of God's word so we would not be deceived. The Mormons, theological liberals as well as other cults and false religions such as Islam that claim the Bible has been tampered with are completely proven false by the extensive, historical manuscript evidence.