Peter Kirby wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 11:30 am
rgprice wrote: ↑Tue Mar 26, 2024 11:22 am
I would just add, likewise, that even without such biases in the documentary record, we also don't find examples of people claiming that the Sibyls never existed either, or really hundreds or thousands of figures which it is ow widely assumed, never existed.
It's relevant to mention in this context the work of people like Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian to discredit Christians.
Quite true. But also works like those of Varro and Pausanias who sought to document the lives of the Sibyls, especially Pausanias. Despite skepticism, Pausanias concluded that the Sibyls were real people and recorded biographies for them.
But also, when it comes to Celsus and the like, while we don't have record of them stating that "Jesus never existed", it is also clear that they presented no alternative knowledge of Jesus either. In other words, they did not say, "Oh yes, we know who he really was, we have an account of him that shows he really did this or that and was just a common criminal." No, that's not what they say. Instead, they, like everyone, worked from the Gospel stories and from the claims made about Jesus. They merely made critical remarks about "what was said about Jesus".
In other words they themselves possessed no "facts" that contradicted the claims of Christians, they were just expressing doubts about the claims being made. They made logical, philosophical, and theological objections.
The fact that they didn't present factual objections doesn't indicate that they were agreed on the facts, merely they they were equally ignorant of any facts.