hrothgar, on Nov 10 2009, 12:36 PM, said:
Quote
If you include christian (and Jewish, who had an equally large anti-christian bias) sources, there are litterally [sic] hundreds of sources.
I'm calling bullshit...
Put up or shut up.
Ill put up. The following non christian sources mention Jesus and/or early christianity.
Flavius Josephus (AD 37?-101?) Several books of antiwuities
Tacitus in his annals
Pliny the younger, in his tenth book.
The babylonian Talmud
Lucian - he satirises christ and early christians.
Also, Thallus, whose wrtings are only knwn through the references in other writers.
Phlegon - whose works are known only throught he quatations found in Philopon
Suetonius
Celsus - whose works are known mainly through the quotations of Origen in Contra Celsus
Philo, who died around ad 40 talks of the early church, and is said to have met Peter. He describes the workings of the church of alexandria, in a work on contemplative life, which is quoted in Eusebius, although the original document appears to be lost.
here is alist of other minor Jewish sources. These are either later of of lesser importance.
His birth is ascribed to an illicit ("Acta Pilati" in Thilo, "Codex apocryph. N.T., I, 526; cf. Justin, "Apol.", I, 35), or even an adulterous, union of His parents (Origen, Against Celsus I.28 and I.32). The father's name is Panthera, a common soldier (Gemara "Sanhedrin", viii; "Schabbath", xii, cf. Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes Judenthum", I, 109; Schottgen, "Horae Hebraicae", II, 696; Buxtorf, "Lex. Chald.", Basle, 1639, 1459, Huldreich, "Sepher toledhoth yeshua hannaceri", Leyden, 1705). The last work in its final edition did not appear before the thirteenth century, so that it could give the Panthera myth in its most advanced form. Rosch is of opinion that the myth did not begin before the end of the first century.
The later Jewish writings show traces of acquaintance with the murder of the Holy Innocents (Wagenseil, "Confut. Libr. Toldoth", 15; Eisenmenger op. cit., I, 116; Schottgen, op. cit., II, 667), with the flight into Egypt (cf. Josephus, "Ant." XIII, xiii), with the stay of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve (Schottgen, op. cit., II, 696), with the call of the disciples ("Sanhedrin", 43a; Wagenseil, op. cit., 17; Schottgen, loc. cit., 713), with His miracles (Origen, Against Celsus II.48; Wagenseil, op. cit., 150; Gemara "Sanhedrin" fol. 17); "Schabbath", fol. 104b; Wagenseil, op. cit., 6, 7, 17), with His claim to be God (Origen, Against Celsus I.28; cf. Eisenmenger, op. cit., I, 152; Schottgen, loc. cit., 699) with His betrayal by Judas and His death (Origen, "Contra cels.", II, 9, 45, 68, 70; Buxtorf, op. cit., 1458; Lightfoot, "Hor. Heb.", 458, 490, 498; Eisenmenger, loc. cit., 185; Schottgen, loc. cit., 699 700; cf. "Sanhedrin", vi, vii). Celsus (Origen, Against Celsus II.55) tries to throw doubt on the Resurrection, while Toldoth (cf. Wagenseil, 19) repeats the Jewish fiction that the body of Jesus had been stolen from the sepulchre.
Then there are teh following christian books/authors.
*Everything in the new testament*
In particular the gospels and the 4 long epistles of st paul, which are important as we have earlier source material for them and there is no real doubt about authorship.
THere is also the apocrypha and the argrapha. These terms refer to the documents that were rejected by the early councils either due to doubt about their accuracy, or about their origins. Neverthe less all confirm the existence of CHrist, or at least a widespread beleif in his existence/cruxifiction etc.
Eusebis is important as he went to the public archives in Edessa around the end of the 3rd century, and found letters written from Abgarus, the ruler of edessa, to Jesus, and the reply by Jesus. He also quotes Papias, who knew personally John the Apostle.
Justin the marytr is known to quote from the "Acts of Pilate" which was apparently an offical summary of Pilate's reign sent to the Emperor.
This is probably good enough.
The physics is theoretical, but the fun is real. - Sheldon Cooper