Eyewitness To Jesus? The Gospel Authors

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Yes, for at least some. For example, Plato and Julius Caesar have documents written by people that aren't directly connected to them and are contemporary to their existence.

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Yes. The historical support for Jesus would lie somewhere between that for Pythagoras and that for Socrates.

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Compare this to Homer. While we have many poems that are ascribed to him, we don't have any that could actually give us an indication that he was a single person who existed.

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Homer provides a good contrast in the other direction. The support for Jesus' existence is much better than anything we have for Homer, for whom we have nothing even remotely contemporaneous, while for Jesus the earliest evidence comes from Paul, writing about 20 years after his death. Not an eyewitness, but someone who did meet Jesus' brothers.

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A classic example :
The EMPTY TOMB is not mentioned by any Christian until mid 2nd century - showing the whole Gospel story is a later myth.

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You're suggesting the gospels were written by non-Christians?

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Justus of Tiberias wrote a history of Galillee and made NO mention of Jesus.

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Gotta watch those second-hand references. Where did you get the idea that he wrote a history of Galilee? As far as I can tell, Justus wrote a history of Jewish kings. Not exactly the circles that Jesus was supposed to have moved in.

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Nor did Philo Judaeus, Musonius Rufus, nor Seneca, nor did dozens of other early writers make any mention of Jesus.

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Why on earth should any of these writers, none of whom lived in Palestine, even have heard of a minor religious figure with a small following in Palestine, much less mentioned him?

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The early Christian documents (e.g. Paul, Clement, Hebrews, Jude, James etc) contain no hard evidence for a historical Jesus of Nazareth - merely mention of a spiritual Iesous Christos derived from scripture.

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Paul's letters and Hebrews both contain clear references to a physical Jesus; only the most desperate, twisted readings of them would suggest otherwise. That doesn't guarantee that Jesus actually existed of course, but Paul at least was in close enough contact with Jesus' milieu that he provides quite good evidence that there was such a person. (What he doesn't do is provide much information about Jesus' life or teachings.)

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The Gospels themselves are traditionally dated to late 1st century, yet the evidence shows that they were UNKNOWN, even to Christians until early-mid 2nd century - and that the Gospels were UN-NAMED until late 2nd century. The actual manuscripts of the Gospels date no earlier than 2nd century.

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No, that's quite wrong. The gospels are tradionally dated to mid to late 1st century. They are dated by virtually all contemporary scholars (of whatever religous persuasion) to late first century, or possibly (in the case of John) very early 2nd century. The earliest surviving evidence for one of the gospels is clearly the use of Mark by Matthew and Luke, both late 1st cent. The earliest non-Biblical Christian writings that can be roughly dated (I Clement and the letters of Ignatius, the first around 100 and the second ten or twenty years later) both contain repeated references to the gospels (or possibly, in the case of Clement, to similar traditions to those that were included by the gospel writers).

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All of which goes to show that Paul's original Iesous Christos was a spiritual being, not historical - then, a century afterward (after the total destruction of Jerusalem), the Gospels stories arise and are repeated ad nauseum.

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In sum, the Gospels are stories, written a century later - Jesus of Nazareth is a myth.

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This bears about as much resemblence to real New Testament scholarship as creationism does to science. Any claim that the gospels weren't written until 100 years after the death of Jesus is simply crackpottery.

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No, s/he was suggesting that there exists no 'EMPTY TOMB' narrative firmly dated to the 1st century CE. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

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Yes. Mark's gospel includes an empty tomb, and is firmly dated to the first century.

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We can't find any indication that he even existed at the time. Nobody seemed to notice his passing. We can't even find any records in the Roman tabulation, despite the evidence of the existence of Pilate.

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What Roman tabulation? Pilate, a Roman official, barely registers in Roman histories. Minor foreign religous figures are highly unlikely to have gotten that much attention.

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Do you honestly believe that if word came round about a man who was capable of raising people from the dead, it wouldn't get documented everywhere and spread so far and wide that it would be impossible to cover it up?

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A bit tendentious there, aren't you? Recast that as, "Do you honestly believe that if word came around about a man whose followers would later claim was capable of raising people from the dead, it wouldn't get documented everywhere?", and see how unimpressive it becomes. Even substitute "whose followers claimed was capable", and it's still remarkably unremarkable that people elsewhere didn't pay any attention. Miracle workers were not exactly a novelty, you know.

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And yet, nobody contemporaneous to Jesus seems to have noticed.

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As best as we can tell, Josephus noticed. Most (but not all) Josephus scholars consider the reference to "James, the brother of Jesus, who is called 'Messiah'" to be genuine. It's a probabilistic judgment, but it's the best that can be done. It's hard to think of anyone else who would be likely to have either noticed or mentioned Jesus.

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Udo Schnelle, for example, dates Mark to 70 CE, Matthew and Luke to 90 CE, and John to between 100 and 110 CE.

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Right. The dating isn't entirely guesswork. Ignatius, who died no later than 117, quoted Matthew, who in turn reworked material from Mark. Allowing time for both gospels to propagate before they'd likely be used by others, Mark pretty clearly had to be written in the first century. The suggestion that it was written ca. 130, on the other hand, would seem to require time travel.

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False analogy -
Homer is not promoted by a religion as historical proof of unbelievable supernatural events.

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What bearing does that have on the quality of the historical evidence available?

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Furthermore,
the reliablity of MANUSCRIPTS has nothing to do with the reliability of the CONTENTS -
e.g. we have copies of the Book of Mormon from merely a few years after it was written - would you argue that the Book of Mormon is therefore true?

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Say what? Who said anything about the reliability of manuscripts? Is Josh McDowell whispering in your ear? We have no records from any near contemporary of Homer, while we do have such records from near contemporaries of Jesus. That is a fact, and it has nothing to do with the date of manuscripts.

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But Paul contains no hard evidence for a historical Jesus - merely a few vague phrases in spiritual terms which may just as easily apply to a spiritual being who operates on the planes above the physical.

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Paul says Jesus was physically ("according to the flesh") a descendant of David. That is not a phrase that can be applied easily to a spiritual being (especially when he describes himself as being Jewish with the same phrase).

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Paul's total failure to mention :
* the Gospel events
* the Gospel actors
* teachings of Jesus
* miracles by Jesus

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Have you actually read Paul? He frequently mentions the death and resurrection of Jesus, both of which are kind of prominent in the gospels. He doesn't seem to be very interested in most of the events of Jesus' life, but he does mention Cephas (Peter), James, John, the brothers of Jesus and "the twelve". Who else should he have mentioned? He mentions the teachings of Jesus -- not very often, but he does mention them. (The most obvious reference is when he quotes Jesus about divorce.) Of your list, the only one he actually doesn't mention is the miracles. Given Paul's interests, it's not clear why he would want to, but it's certainly reasonable to state that Paul provides no evidence that Jesus was known to him as a miracle worker.

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* Paul makes it very clear he got his teachings "from no man",
* he makes it clear he is "just as much" an apostle as the pillars,
* he openly criticises the teachings of the pillars,
* he lists his visions among the appearances to the others.

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None of which has any bearing on the fact that Paul includes the brothers of Jesus among those pillars (i.e. those already recognized as leaders by the followers of Jesus), and that he says he met them. The fact that Paul didn't like Jesus' brothers is hardly evidence that they didn't exist. No one is arguing that Paul's visions of Jesus constitute historical evidence. What's important is that both Paul and those he was writing to (including some who had been followers of Jesus longer then he had) thought of Jesus as someone who had brothers, and that those brothers really existed. Trying to turn this Jesus into a purely spiritual figure requires considerable contortion.

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No, as CA pointed out, I simply meant no Christian author for the first CENTURY or so after the alleged events (which covers about 20 early Christian documents) shows any knowledge of the empty tomb story.

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And I pointed out that you're wrong. Your attempted redating of the gospels is simply implausible. (Heck, we've got a manuscript of John's gospel that's probably earlier than the supposed writing of the gospels.)

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Please DO check out my analysis here:
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which clearly lays out my argument.

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I looked at it. What's Ignatius doing in the 130s? Why are Paul's references to the crucifixion and the Last Supper "uncertain" or "informal"? What happened to Paul's citation of Jesus' teaching? What happened to Ignatius and Clement's quotations from the gospels?

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This is supported by a fragment from the Apology of Aristides :
"... the gospel, as it is called, which a short time was preached among them"
which shows that the Gospel (singular) was new in Aristides time (which was probably in the 120-130s or perhaps later) - and that the formal term "Gospel" was new then ...

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Oh my goodness. An apology is a work addressed to someone outside the faith -- you know, someone you'd have to define terms for. And of course "gospel" is singular. "Gospel" has always had the primary meaning of the message about Jesus; the designation of the four Gospels as such is secondary.What text are you using, anyway? This is the only reference I can find to "gospel" in a translation of the Greek text:

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If the Gospel events had transpired, I think Justus would have mentioned Jesus - Photius thought it a "fault" that he didn't.

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Here's Photius's description: Photius is obviously miffed that Jesus wasn't mentioned, but it isn't likely that he had a reliable perspective on how Jesus would have been viewed by his contemporaries, is it? If you can conclude that a chronology of the Kings of Judah from Moses to Agrippa should have mentioned someone who wasn't a king (or a political figure at all) and who didn't live in Judah, you practice an unusual form of inference.

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Philo wote at length about Jewish beliefs and history (and he was the first to use the concept of the "Logos") - I think he would have mentioned a religious teacher such as Jesus.

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What did Philo write at length about Jewish history? Which work do you think should have mentioned Jesus? Judging from Josephus, John the Baptist was a more significant public figure than Jesus. How many times does Philo mention John? (The answer is zero.)

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Seneca's times and thoughts were so similar to Paul, that a forged correspondence sprung up - if Seneca had heard of Jesus's teachings, it is fairly natural he would have mentioned him.

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You didn't answer my question. Why would Seneca, living in Rome when he wasn't in exile, have heard of Jesus' teachings? What other aspects of Jewish culture does he show an awareness of?

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The point is, there are quite a few writers from the period, see my list :
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Some of these writers, could, or even should, have mentioned Jesus -
none did.

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Exactly one of those writes should have mentioned Jesus: Josephus. And most Josephus scholars (including most non-Christian ones) have concluded that he did mention him. The others have zero evidentiary value. Apply the same test I suggested earlier: how many of these authors mention John the Baptist? Josephus, and that's it. (By the way, how do you know that Philo spent time in Jerusalem?)

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I disagree - please backup your claim with evidence.

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I've already provided one for Paul. For Hebrews:5:7 "During the days of Jesus' flesh, he offered up prayers and petitions."2:14 "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity [Gr: he likewise participated/shared in them]."12:3 "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men..."

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Please pay attention.
That may be so, I make no specific claim to exactly when the (various layers of the) Gospels were WRITTEN.
I do however, make specific claims, backed with evidence, about the rise of knowledge about the Gospels' and contents.
I repeat my claim :
No Christian author shows knowledge of the Gospels or their contents, until early-mid 2nd century

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And your claim is wrong, since the author of Matthew was a Christian author, wrote before the early 2nd century, and showed detailed knowledge of the content of the gospels. What authors are there who could have displayed a knowledge of the Gospels before the early 2nd century? Paul (and probably the author of Hebrews) wrote before the Gospels were written. Other NT writers (not counting the Gospel writers) wrote at unknown dates. The next writing we have is right around the beginning of the 2nd century.

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Pardon?
An un-attested document dates another unattested document?
What are you smoking? :-)
There is NO EVIDENCE for any of the Gospels existing before early-mid 2nd century.
How on earth can you claim a document for which we have no evidence as proof of another document for which we have no evidence?
Claims and assertions and opinions about dates are worthless.
Please produce some actual evidence.

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There are a number of lines of evidence that indicate that Matthew was written well before 130. Ignatius (whose letters, despite your rejection of them, are nearly universally accepted by the relevant experts) is one. Polycarp's clear quotation of Matthew is another. The date of Polycarp's letter was probably around 110-120. Personally, I find it pretty implausible that Polycarp, who was 60 years old in 130, wouldn't have noticed new writings suddenly appeared that didn't mesh with existing stories about Jesus. There's also Papias, who wrote sometime in the period 120-140; he reports traditions about the origin of written gospels, placing them in the generation of the apostles. Whether the traditions are accurate or not is unimportant; what matters is that by the time of Papias, there were already written gospels (attributed to Mark and Matthew) that were old, old enough to have accumulated traditions.

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Clement however, clearly IS an early document,
and I note you allow there may be no clear refereences to the Gospels therein.
Indeed so -
Clement has about 100 references to the OT, often named, and called "scripture",
Clement has about 100 references to Paul, often named, and called "wise writings",
but
Clement has merely 2 sayings similar (not exact) to Gospel sayings, introduced with "remember the words of the Lord Jesus" - i.e. oral tradition about a founder figure, not necessarily historical.

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Where did you get these numbers? I just went through Clement's letter to the Corinthians, and I find one explicit reference to Paul's writings (specifically to one of his letters to the Corinthians) and two explicit references to the words of Jesus (both quite similar to material in the Gospels); in addition there is one string of quotations from Hebrews and a reference to the parable of the sower, plus a number of phrases echoing gospel and Pauline material. The reference to Paul's epistle is, "Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle. What did he first write to you in the 'beginning of the gospel'? Truly he wrote to you in the Spirit about himself and Cephan and Apollos."The two references to gospel material are introduced by "Let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus, which he spoke as he taught gentleness and patience", and "Remember the words of Jesus our Lord, for he said . . .". None of the references in Clement are particularly useful as historical evidence for Jesus, but the phrasing of the first strongly suggests that Clement is thinking of a physical Jesus teaching in the flesh. Is your position that everyone forgot about the spiritual Jesus in the 35 or 40 years between Paul and Clement's letter, even though some individuals almost certainly lived through the entire period? That a spirit being in the heavenly realms was converted into a physical person living in Palestine in less than a single lifetime, that this happened in the minds of Christians spread throughout the Mediterranean, and that no one noticed or commented on the change? I find that a tad implausible. I also note that your claim was that there was no evidence that any of the Gospel stories or events were known earlier than the 2nd century. Since Clement is late 1st century, and knows stories of Jesus teaching, your claim would seem to be wrong.

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The Ignatiana was forged in the 130s (exactly the period the Gospels arose) - the letters are notoriusly corrupt and it is doubtful if the person even existed. Doubts about the letters arose even in early times.

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That the letters are authentic is the consensus of current scholarship, or at least that was the situation in 1992, judging from Holmes's edition of The Apostolic Fathers. The consesus can always be wrong, of course, but you have given no justification for overthrowing it in this case. (The existence of Ignatius is established by the letter of Polycarp, which refers to him.)

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I never once claimed "the gospels weren't written until 100 years after the death of Jesus" - please do me the courtesy of actually following my argument properly.

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My mistake. I thought that when you wrote you were saying that the Gospels were stories, written a century later. What exactly have I misunderstood about that sentence?

As far as I can remember, I've been responding to claims that there is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, and also to claims that the gospel material and the idea of a physical Jesus arose much later than Paul. I don't recall defending the historicity of the gospels per se, and I certainly haven't suggested that everything in them is historically accurate. In particular, taking any ancient document's estimate of the size of a crowd at face value would be pretty silly.I doubt we have the data to determine how large a following Jesus had. How large a following do you think it would have taken for Jesus to count as a significant religious figure to someone like Seneca living in Rome?

PaulK's answer was a good one. An expert might offer a slightly longer list, but I'm not an expert. I vaguely recall E.P. Sanders (noted for his role in placing Jesus in his Jewish context) included Jesus' selection of 12 disciples as one the core facts, but I could be misremembering. Since we have a copy of most of Paul's letters that dates from earlier than Eusebius, that seems like an odd theory.

I'm arguing that a work described as a history of kings is likely to focus on kings, and that the absence of someone who wasn't a king is hardly surprising. Not by name, but he was certainly the political leader of the Jewish people, so including him would be appropriate. Who? Who thinks Jesus was a political leader of Judah? This is really reaching. Commentary on scripture has little to do with contemporary history-writing (especially given Philo's tendencies as an interpreter). Both concerned with the conflict in his own country, and in which he participated. He did not write about Palestinian history. I'll repeat my previous question: how many times does Philo mention John the Baptist? Why should he have mentioned Jesus more often than John? This is exceedingly weak. I think it entirely possible that Seneca had heard of Christians. Why should he have mentioned Jesus, even if he knew who he was? As for Peter and Paul, I have no idea whether they were in Rome or not, but if they were, what of it? Is it your position that Seneca should have mentioned every person who was known to someone who was visiting Rome?

I've looked at it, and at a number of his other pages. I haven't been able to find the references to spiritual beings who take on flesh and blood while not becoming historical. Could you point them out, please? I did note that Doherty discusses Paul's description of Jesus' descent "according to the flesh" without mentioning Paul's use of the identical term in the same letter, since Paul's clear meaning there would have demolished his argument. Does Doherty mention that item elsewhere? Because if he doesn't, I find it hard to see his approach as intellectually honest. Yes, I'm really claiming that Matthew's use of Mark is evidence that Mark already existed. There's nothing obviously silly about such an argument, so why are you suggesting that there is? A few points. First, the dates you have assigned to most of these books are pure guesswork; several of them could easily have been written before Matthew. Second, one of the books, Clement, quotes material that sounds very much like Matthew. So either Matthew already existed, or gospel material that sounded very much like the canonical gospels was well known. Either way, it certainly makes dubious any claim that the gospel stories were second century creations. (I already pointed out how Clement's manner of quoting strongly suggests that he has a historical Jesus in mind.)On your more general point, that these books don't mention anything about a non-spiritual Jesus, I think you're mistaken.I John 4:2. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. (Similaly in II John 2:7.)I Peter 2:21-24. To this you wre called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree."Can you find anything from a mystery religion that sounds at all like either of these passages?(Note also that the Pastoral epistles, which many date to around 100, contain clear references to gospel materials.)

None of which affects the fact that the virtually unanimous consensus among the relevant experts (i.e. professional scholars, not people who write web pages, and counting only those who wrote within the last hundred years) is that the text of the seven Ignatian letters preserved in the middle recension is genuine, and dates from earlier than 120. "[I am] totally convinced with regard to our Lord that he is truly of the family of David with respect to human descent, Son of God with respect to the divine will and power, truly born of a virgin, baptized by John in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him, truly nailed in the flesh for us under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrach."
Sure sounds to me like he knew the basics of the gospel story. (Oh, and note that he uses the same phrase as Paul for Jesus' physical descent from David, the one that Doherty finds so ambiguous.)

Then why do we have a copy of the gospel of John that dates from early in the second century?