dartagnan wrote:Is that a rhetorical question?
I posed questions, not dogmatic assertions. Discussion is what one would assume, not pithy dismissal. The links I provided direct us to two friends of mine who have provided extremely detailed analyses, of both possible references.
I hope you are not implying that I am making dogmatic assertions in this thread. I challenge you to demonstrate where I did that.
Furthermore, it was not clear to me, based at least on the value of the "evidences" you provided that you were in fact serious. After all, these sources are even worse than Suetonius and Tacitus as confirmations of the historicity of Jesus.
To quote the author of the site on Mara Bar-Serapion:
"This reference to Jesus is not particularly valuable. We have no idea what qualifications the writer of this letter held. We are not even sure when this letter was written, other than that it was after 73 AD, and very likely after 135 AD (which fits better the description of the Jews' dispersal), but also likely no later than 165 AD (because of the description suitable to the Parthian war) [VanV.JONT, 56]. At best, it offers us a special insight into how one particular pagan viewed the person of Jesus."
For this reason, and because the passage refers only to "the wise king," I don't see how on earth this adds anything to the evidence of Jesus' historicity.
Now for Thallus:
"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the passover; but an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time but in the interval between the first day of the new moon and the last of the old, that is, at their junction: how then should an eclipse be supposed to happen when the moon is almost diametrically opposite the sun? Let opinion pass however; let it carry the majority with it; and let this portent of the world be deemed an eclipse of the sun, like others a portent only to the eye. Phlegon records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth--manifestly that one of which we speak. But what has an eclipse in common with an earthquake, the rending rocks, and the resurrection of the dead, and so great a perturbation throughout the universe? Surely no such event as this is recorded for a long period. (XVIII.1)"
This quote is from Julius Africanus, a third century Christian historian. A discerning reader will note that Thallus may have only referred to an eclipse of the sun, which the author is relating to the darkness connected to the crucifixion. It is the third century Christian author who appears to be drawing the specific connection. It is unclear to me, based on this quote, that Thallus mentioned Jesus or a Christus at all. The passage strikes me as apologetic in nature, and for that reason as well as the vagueness concerning the precise words of Thallus probably untrustworthy.
In all seriousness, I was uncertain that you were in earnest when you brought these "evidences" forward. In both cases they are pretty poor.
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