Archaeologists believe they've found cross of Jesus of Nazareth

[Warren DeMontague]

145. A few things in reply to your well-thought out, cogent post.

Bear with me bc I'm on the ipad so my typing skills decline markedly.

1) no, but history- as in, the study of actual events that can be argued to actually, objectively have happened- is subject to the same sort of evidentiary challenges and logic that science is.

2) this is the problem- the ONLY "historical scholars" or "historians" who deal with any sort of objective historical existence of Jesus, ARE "Biblical scholars". This is because, like I said, there is no evidence for the guy outside the Bible. None. Zero. That there are large numbers of these "biblical scholars" studying topics of "biblical history" attests to the popularity of the topic and size of the target market, but that does not mean that objective historians take it seriously, nor do they need to, again, absent additional evidence. However, as far as "among other sources"- that's the thing. There ARE NO other sources. ALL sources on the "historical" life of "jesus" go back to the NT.

3) there's no zeal on my part. He may have existed, or the stories may be based on one or more real people. Thats not the point. The point is, ALL the "historical evidence" comes from the Bible. Your assertion about "a number of sources" is incorrect.

3) (you've got two threes! ) you are conflating two things, one being unbelief or a "need to prove he wasn't divine" (which I, personally, don't have any more than I "need to prove" Zeus isn't responsible for lightning) with, again, the very legitimate challenging of an objective, again, historical assertion which is not backed up by objective evidence, i.e. that "Jesus" existed.

If the assertion is going to be made on the objective, non-faith based plane, then it needs to compete on the same evidentiary rules that other historical assertions would be subject to. No more, no less.


You are assuming that this is about Atheists trying to "score points" or such, but its not. It is about subjecting a historical assertion which is often granted special pleading status, to the same rigors any other assertion would be subject to. "Nonsense"? We are talking about events alleged to have happened 2,000 yrs ago. What is nonsense is to assert factual knowledge either way, given the clear lack of objective evidence.