Why do Christians still cite these historians as secular proof that Jesus is Lord?

Question

Josephus--the part about Jesus has been proven to be a forgery inserted by christians scribes hundreds of years after Josephus wrote his original

Suetonius--speaks of "chrestus" as though he is a person still living in Rome in the 60's.

Tacitus--mentions the death of Christ but 200 years after the event took place, calls the christian religion a "superstition"

Pliny: mentions that the christian cult was in existence (in the early 2nd century) no surprise here.

The fact is there were many "christs" or messiahs and NO ONE makes mention of the "fact" that Jesus was the son of god, or rose from the dead, or even mentions "Jesus" by name.

Harmony: christians often say this "the martyrs wouldn't have died for nothing, so Jesus must be the messiah." That is terribly faulty logic and incorrect.

towelie: obviously christianity exists and was a religion during the time of Rome. I am not disputing that.

L.C. Are you saying that the contamination of Josephus had to have occured after the tenth century? Do better research next time.

Answer 1

Christianity made it's way to the top by a mountain of corpses and a river of blood. It toppled the Roman Empire and controlled just about every country in the Middle Ages through the Pope. It had nothing to do with it's "Truth," only it's "convenience."

Answer 2

Well, since we don't have the originals of Josephus' works, we don't know for sure. However, if one looks at his style of writing, the only thing that seems to have been inserted is his calling Jesus "the Christ." As a devout Jew and a Pharisee, he would not have done that. According to most historians, that is the ONLY Christian interpolation.
If we were to throw out ALL of what Josephus wrote based upon one suspected interpolation, we would have to throw out ALL manuscripts of antiquity because they have the same things suspected of them.
However, even if that entire paragraph was taken out, there are still the references both to Jesus' brother James, and John the Baptist.

Incorrect. He (Suetonius) was writing seventy-five years after the fact, so:
1. He would not have known the name of the person causing the "disturbance."
2. Where does he refer to "Chrestus" as still having been alive in the 60s? The disturbance he refers to took place in around 49 A.D.

Of course Tacitus would have referred to Christianity as superstition! He didn't believe in it! He was a historian who lived at a time when Christianity was heavily persecuted! It's also thought that he was born in Italy or somewhere nearby, so because he was quite a distance away from the events, he would not have known what eyewitnesses, some of whom were alive at the time of his writing, were saying.
As a sidenote, what he regards as "superstition" is not the existence of Jesus, but Jesus' resurrection. It was well-known that a man called Jesus existed, and that He founded a new religion.

Pliny the Younger's writings are important not because he mentions the Christian "cult" but because he mentions how heavily they were persecuted. He talks about their dedication to their religion. And keep in mind, he was born when several of the apostles were still alive, and beginning their ministry as far away as Asia Minor (near Turkey, but I'm sure you knew that). He died less than thirty years after it's thought that John the Apostle died! And never once does he say that Jesus did NOT exist. He simply said that the Christians were a "cult" based on the teachings of a Jewish man.

The fact that these writings mention that the earliest Christians believed that Jesus HAD risen from the dead actually lend more credence to the idea. When Christianity was first founded (within less than two years after the death and resurrection of Jesus) is NOT long enough after the fact for mythical things to be added in. Ask any historian about that. It takes MUCH longer for fact to become myth.

As a sidenote, these historians do not prove the divine aspect of Jesus' existence. They do, however, lend more believability to the idea that a man called Jesus did exist, and His followers were willing to die for what they believed they had witnessed.

Answer 3

Jesus is the personification of the SUN and Christianity is a pagan based religion celebrating the movement of the stars and the position of the sun in the sky. The Bible is pretty much the same book as the Egyptian religous text The Book of the Dead, and the scriptures are not talking about a person they are talking about the sun and astrological symbals. Dec 25 has always been an improtant date in many religions, cause it is the day that the sun begins to remain in the sky for longer "Bringing us out of darkness" and it is a sign that spring "life, hope" is on its way.

Answer 4

There is no independently verifiable proof that Jesus was a real person. However, Christianity doesn't rely on historical proof of Jesus - it uses memetics to instill the idea that Jesus was real. Many humans still have a "herd instinct" that causes them to believe something if enough other humans they know believe - even if that "something" seems to defy logic or isn't provable. That's why freethinkers sometimes refer to them as "sheeple".

Answer 5

‘Christ according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the Father being the first and the holy Ghost the third. Each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten--just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father, and the father is just as young as his son. The Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and Son, but was an equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say before he existed, but he is of the same age as the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.’

- Col. Robert G. Ingersoll



God is not the author of confusion. (1 Corinthians 14:33)


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Answer 6

(Some) Christians have this habit of ignoring facts that contradict what they want to believe. Or they get real creative in the stories they concoct to 'explain' them.

These are people who insist that they understand Hebrew scriptures better than the Jews after all.

Answer 7

Most people are not interested in history. You and I and a few others are and we are a minority. The majority believe what ever some one tells them if it fits their belief structure.


AEN

Answer 8

You are incorrect concerning Josephus, it is believed that Christians added information concerning Jesus to his writings, but it is commonly believed that Josephus does write briefly about Jesus as a man who performed wonders and had followers.

Please do better research in the future.

Answer 9

Dear confused one, you obviously are mixed up just what a cult is. In many cases critics of the scriptures of God refuse to accept they are true but will tend to believe the works of man, thus they are put fwd.

Answer 10

What about the other tens of thousands of manuscripts that do. I doubt the accuracy of your claims also. Do you doubt the persecutions of Christians in Rome by Nero, which are documented beyond disbelief?