Did Marco Polo Lie?

From *The Skeptical Review*, 1996/July-August:

by Farrell Till

We often hear biblicists argue that there is as much proof for the historicity of Jesus and the events attributed to him in the New Testament as there is for the existence of Julius Caesar and other historical characters. They claim that those who reject biblical characters and events have no logical basis for accepting anything that we have learned through historical records. A recent controversy surrounding a well known historical character will illustrate the erroneous thinking of those who so argue.

Wanting To Believe In Miracles

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne
A letter I sent to a Church of Christ preacher about 7 years ago:

Christians make the claim that God came to earth in the flesh of a man, Jesus Christ. That he was born of a virgin, performed various miracles while on earth, died and about three days later came back to life never to die again, then forty days later ascended into heaven, and that all or much of this was miraculously foretold by God-inspired prophets in the Old Testament. These are all ontologically positive and distant claims that go against all conventional, community experiences. These Christian claims, therefore, bear an extremely high asymmetrical burden of proof. That means that before someone should believe these claims are actually true, the evidence presented would have to be so profound and so unequivocal that one would be forced to believe these claims instead of believing what he knows happens all the time--and go with something that, as far as his experiences, has never happened.

Unfortunately, what I've seen as evidence for these Christian claims is not even close to being sufficient for the type of claims made. The four Gospels are nothing but hearsay, written by biased, anonymous writers. Certain church "fathers" made a fanciful connection to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being the authors--but no one really knows who wrote these book. These church fathers amount to no more than what you would consider denominational preachers today--yet you believe them on this essential matter--and would, today, be very skeptical of anything they had to say on the subject of religion. But even if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the actual authors they were biased and what they wrote amounts to no more than religious propaganda. None of the  disinterested, contemporary scientists or writers of the time Jesus is said to have lived record anything about Jesus, much less his miracles. Josephus does not qualify because it is obvious that his work has been tampered with concerning his mention of Jesus and is therefore flawed and unreliable. Alexander Campbell had this to say:

Silence Of Contemporary Writers

The following is Chapter Two of John Remsburg's *The Christ*, published in 1909:

Silence of Contemporary Writers.

Another proof that the Christ of Christianity is a fabulous and not a historical character is the silence of the writers who lived during and immediately following the time he is said to have existed.

That a man named Jesus, an obscure religious teacher, the basis of this fabulous Christ, lived in Palestine about nineteen hundred years ago, may be true. But of this man we know nothing. His biography has not been written. E. Renan and others have attempted to write it, but have failed—have failed because no materials for such a work exist. Contemporary writers have left us not one word concerning him. For generations afterward, outside of a few theological epistles, we find no mention of him.

The following is a list of writers who lived and wrote during the time, or within a century after the time, that Christ is said to have lived and performed his wonderful works:

Josephus, Philo-Judaeus, Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Arrian, Petronius, Dion Pruseus, Paterculus,[25] Suetonius, Juvenal, Martial, Persius, Plutarch, Justus of Tiberius, Apollonius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Quintilian, Lucanus, Epictetus, Silius Italicus,

Statius, Ptolemy, Hermogones, Valerius Maximus, Appian, Theon of Smyrna, Phlegon, Pompon Mela, Quintius Curtius Lucian, Pausanias, Valerius Flaccus, Florus Lucius, Favorinus, Phaedrus, Damis, Aulus Gellius, Columella, Dio Chrysostom, Lysias, Appion of Alexandria.

Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author, and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.

Philo was born before the beginning of the Christian era, and lived until long after the reputed death of Christ. He wrote an account of the Jews covering the entire time that Christ is said to have existed on earth. He was living in or near Jerusalem when Christ’s miraculous birth and the Herodian massacre occurred. He was there when Christ made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He was there when the crucifixion [26]with its attendant earthquake, supernatural darkness, and resurrection of the dead took place—when Christ himself rose from the dead, and in the presence of many witnesses ascended into heaven. These marvelous events which must have filled the world with amazement, had they really occurred, were unknown to him. It was Philo who developed the doctrine of the Logos, or Word, and although this Word incarnate dwelt in that very land and in the presence of multitudes revealed himself and demonstrated his divine powers, Philo saw it not.

Josephus, the renowned Jewish historian, was a native of Judea. He was born in 37 A. D., and was a contemporary of the Apostles. He was, for a time, Governor of Galilee, the province in which Christ lived and taught. He traversed every part of this province and visited the places where but a generation before Christ had performed his prodigies. He resided in Cana, the very city in which Christ is said to have wrought his first miracle. He mentions every noted personage of Palestine and describes every important event which occurred there during the first seventy years of the Christian era. But Christ was of too little consequence and his deeds too trivial to merit a line from this historian’s pen.

Justus of Tiberius was a native of Christ’s own country, Galilee. He wrote a history covering the time of Christ’s reputed existence. This [27]work has perished, but Photius, a Christian scholar and critic of the ninth century, who was acquainted with it, says: “He [Justus] makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, of what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did” (Photius’ Bibliotheca, code 33).

My Reply To A Church Of Christ Preacher

By Kenneth W. Hawthorne

This is part of a reply (with some editing) to a Church of Christ preacher who claimed in his weekly bulletin that it is impossible to know that miracles are impossible. However, there is absolutely no convincing, verifiable evidence that Yahweh, the god of the Bible has caused any miracles to occur that would attest to his existence. To the contrary, the Bible is full of evidence that Yahweh cannot be God. This blog has many examples of such evidence, especially concerning this alleged god's eternal hell. For example see: An Omni God And His Eternal Hell, A Letter To A Concerned Christian Friend:

Christians make the claim that God came to earth in the flesh of a man, Jesus Christ. That he was born of a virgin, performed various miracles while on earth, died and about three days later came back to life never to die again, then forty days later ascended into heaven, and that all or much of this was miraculously foretold by God-inspired prophets in the Old Testament. These are all positive and distant claims (distant in this context has to do with how close the claims correspond to empirical knowledge such as for the claims "pigs snort" {close} and "pigs fly" {distant}) which go against all personal and community experiences. These Christian claims, therefore, bear an extremely high asymmetrical burden of proof. That means that before a rational person should seriously consider believing these extraordinary claims are true the evidence presented would have to consist of many reliable, disinterested, contemporary witness accounts--of which we have none or involve an immediate, unequivocal, personal experience  so that one would be forced to seriously consider these distant claims instead of believing what he knows happens all the time--and go with something that, as far as his experiences, has never happened.

Unfortunately, what I've seen as evidence for these Christian claims is not even close to being sufficient for the type of claims made. The four Gospels are nothing but hearsay, written by biased, anonymous writers. Certain church "fathers" made a fanciful connection to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John being the authors, based merely on biased speculation and tradition--but no one really knows who wrote these books. These church fathers amount to no more than what you would consider denominational preachers today--yet you believe them on this essential matter--and would, today, be very skeptical of anything they had to say on the subject of religion. None of the disinterested, contemporary scientists or writers of the time Jesus is said to have lived record anything about Jesus, much less his miracles. Josephus does not qualify because he is not a contemporary of Jesus and it is obvious that his work has been tampered with concerning his mention of Jesus and is therefore flawed and unreliable.

Alexander Campbell (Church of Christ icon) had this to say:

“Josephus, the Jewish historian, was contemporary with the Apostles, having been born in the year 37. From his situation and habits, he had every access to know all that took place at the rise of the Christian religion. Respecting the founder of this religion, Josephus has thought fit to be silent in history. The present copies of his work contain one passage which speaks very respectfully of Jesus Christ, and ascribes to him the character of the Messiah. But as Josephus did not embrace Christianity, and as this passage is not quoted or referred to until the beginning of the fourth century, it is, for these and other reasons, generally accounted spurious” (Evidences of Christianity, from Campbell-Owen Debate, p. 312).

The more accurate word Campbell should have used at the end instead of "spurious" is forged.

The Apostle Thomas was allegedly given direct, unequivocal evidence of Jesus's resurrection. Why shouldn't we be given this same type of evidence? The Bible claims that Yahweh shows no partiality, Acts 10:34, so how could he have given this amazing advantage to Thomas and not to every man? Especially since the Bible teaches that Thomas already had several tremendous advantages to cause belief: 1) he had seen Jesus raise the dead, John 11; 2) Thomas, himself, with the rest of the Apostles, was given the power to raise the dead, Mt 10:1-8; 3) Jesus had told Thomas and the rest of the Apostles that he would rise from the dead, Mt 16:21; 4) the culture Thomas lived in was predisposed to believe that resurrections were possible, Mt 14:1-2; Mt 16:13-14.

But this type of direct evidence obviously cannot happen because of all of the other evidence that goes counter to the god of the Bible being the true God, primary of which is that he created man for his glory, knowing man's flawed nature. Knowing that to get this glory that he wanted, but didn't need, untold billions of his beloved (?) humans would have to be tortured forever in the hell that he decided must exist.

Why this fiction, called Christianity, has managed to hold on so long has a lot to do with this admission that you made, "The message of the Bible is such that any rational person will want to believe it. And, wanting to believe it, he will look for rea­sons to be­lieve rather than reasons to dis­believe."  These sentiments are understandable but they are not rational, not scientific and are anything but a blue print for finding the truth. Your admission speaks volumes about why you continue to delude yourself concerning the truthfulness of Christianity. You want to believe that miracle claims associated with Christianity are true and you only look for reasons to believe this. I think this is the problem with most false religions. They too have the same mindset.

That is why the vast majority of people born in Islamic countries are Muslim and remain so throughout their lives--and ditto for countries that are predominantly Christian, Hindu, etc.

Kenneth

Josephus's Jesuses

From the II Errancy discussion list, January 9, 2002:

HELEN
I once took the time to count up all the Jesuses listed in

Josephus from I think it was 100 BC to 50 AD. It was a

relatively large number, like 40-50 of them. Most of them

were minor political or religious leaders. I think there
were several Jesuses listed in the Talmud for the same

period. There are even at least two possible passing references

to other Jesuses in the NT for heaven's sake. In some very

old manuscripts of the gospels' Barabbas (Aramaic name

means "son of the father"), a supposed revolutionary political

leader, has the first name of Jesus, and there is a Jewish

magician with the Greek name Elymas and a Hebrew name

of Bar-Jesus (son of Jesus) who Paul out magics in Acts

chapter 13. It is not hard to imagine that stories from
either of these two men's lives or any of the other Jesuses

could have added to the gospels' myths. When it is considered

that the gospels were written at least 30-40 years after the

events they describe and there were all these Jesuses

running around doing things that were being remembered

in folk tales, I would think that it is reasonable to suspect

there was far more than one human Jesus that inspired

the stories of the gospels. If you add to this possibility

that any good story about a Jewish religious teacher who was
addressed in the story by his followers as simply "Rabbi" might

also have mistakenly become part of the Christian mythology,

I think the idea that no one "Jesus" of the gospels ever existed

is very reasonable.

TILL
It's rather odd that Josephus, who was born shortly after the

time Jesus was allegedly crucified, would have mentioned

so many obscure Jesuses but mentioned Jesus the

miracle-worker and resurrected one only in two short
statements whose authenticity has been challenged by

many scholars.

Farrell Till