Historical Jesus, Biblical Jesus

[Free]

You are missing the point entirely.

If Jesus existed, any sane person would understand that he existed as an ordinary man as opposed to some god-like entity with incredible powers. Therefore, as an ordinary man his fame would not be overstated to such an extent that it reached the rest of the known world and into other countries such as Egypt, and specifically Alexandria some 600 miles away.

By the time Philo went to Gaius only 5 years or less would have passed since Jesus was crucified. Christianity hadn't even sprouted legs yet. There were no gospels, letters, or anything for the NT. Supporters of Jesus were still known as Jews and still in hiding from orthodox Jews to avoid persecution.

If Philo knew anything at all, all he would have heard from the Jews in Judea was that somebody named Jesus was claimed to be a Christ and ended up being just another in a long list of Jews who got crucified. His importance would not be overstated, and certainly the Jews who had him crucified before Pilate would not be claiming that this Jesus was someone significant. To them, he was just another rebel that got his ass handed to him.

So tell me again how those Jews in Jerusalem would have said much to anyone in Egypt, if they said anything at all, about some rebel they got crucified. Then tell me why Philo would find it necessary to even speak about that rebel. 

You need to stop thinking about some real god in terms of this Jesus and start thinking that he was just a man; a man who was nothing but a rabble rouser among the local Jews in Jerusalem, and a man who became very insignificant to those Jews after he was dealt with by those Jews in Jerusalem.

Christianity did not yet exist. No bible. Paul still virtually unknown. Any tall tales about this Jesus, if they existed, were still not widespread. So all you really have here is that a man got crucified and the Jews didn't give a fuck about that, including Philo.

Reason this thing out because the Philo argument is a joke in terms of actual history. No only is it an argument from silence, but it's also an unqualified argument from silence from a true historical perspective. It might work against the Christian believers, but it doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of working against actual history.

My apologies for being away so long but the shit hit the fan in Dog Rescue land and I have been swamped.  We have 15 dogs coming in from China and my second-in-command is hospitalized so guess who got to do all the work?  I didn't work this hard when I was working although I will say that the dogs are far more appreciative than the IRS ever was.

What kind of a job do you have? Sounds interesting.

Anyway, what you are failing to consider is that your arguments work just as well if there was never any fucking jesus.  I of course agree with you that no sane person would put any stock in the nonsense that was put forward by early xhristards.  The problem is we are not dealing with sane people.  We are dealing with believers and that is a whole other animal.

Agreed.

Of course there were no miracles, and no multitudes welcoming this asshole into Jerusalem on a donkey, that goes without saying.  But your position has always been that because there are some things in the gospels that may have happened that they did happen.  And there is simply no evidence to support that.  I put it to you this way:  Does every bit of human mythology require some actual human to have been the raison d'etre?

Not exactly. My position is simply based upon all evidence considered, and the odds. It's not about "some things in the gospels that may have happened that they did happen" but rather that somethings may have happened therefore it's more likely than not that they did, with specifics just on the crucifixion.

You suggest that Philo didn't write about jesus because by the time Philo died jesus was still a nobody.  I'm saying that it is far more likely that the reason is that fucking jesus had not been invented yet and in fact no one in the first century heard of him because he was a second century creation of some unknown xtian shithead.

And therein lies the argument from silence, and such arguments require corroborating evidence and sound reasoning to be valid arguments from silence. Since there is no corroborating evidence, and I have presented sound reasoning to contest your argument from silence, I don't view your argument as being a valid argument from silence. I see it as being invalidated. Essentially my points against it are stronger than your points for it.

The odds favor that since Jesus wasn't all that and the bag of chips the Christians claimed he was during his day then they have overstated his fame, which means he was likely very unknown outside Jerusalem, and certainly outside of Judea. And then with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem being responsible for his death, they would certainly play down only local fame he had as to not appear like they had someone important killed. Therefore, they would either not speak of it, or if the subject came up they would just handwave it all away as just being some nobody who deserved what he got.