# Technically True, From a Certain Point of View.

An episode of [Viced Rhino: The Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1536972599), 26 Dec 2025, 25 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69199078/pod_censored_the_skeptics_journey_part_4.mp3

In this instalment, our "skeptic" grapples with the fact that non-Christian authors mentioned Jesus, and the implications that has for Jesus' miracles. Cards: We Can Trust The Bible...Because of All The Errors and Contradictions!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqLcUqfFNKw Bad Things Aren't Bad Without GOD!!!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvdWf5gDMRE Original Video: https://tinyurl.com/289f6lcs Sources: The Apocalyptic Context for Jesus’ View of the Messiah: https://tinyurl.com/2chowv5a Christianity in Talmud and midrash: https://tinyurl.com/26kbqr9x The Annals (Tacitus): https://tinyurl.com/l8erq4b Josephus and Jesus: The Testimonium Flavianum Question: https://tinyurl.com/26ygvzn4 Passing of Peregrinus: https://tinyurl.com/y38cxae2 Josephus on Jesus: https://tinyurl.com/y8fy2zob Celsus: https://tinyurl.com/25oxrjcc All my various links can be found here: http://links.vicedrhino.com This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/viced-rhino-the-podcast--4623273/support. All my various links can be found here: http://links.vicedrhino.com This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to my podcast. This is an audio
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[0:19] Speaker 1: Patreon dot com, slash Vice Rhino. Please enjoy.
[0:23] Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to my channel, Vice Rhino. Here today
[0:28] Speaker 2: we're looking at the fourth installment of the Skeptics Journey
[0:30] Speaker 2: series from the Christianity Engage channel. It's the supposedly true
[0:34] Speaker 2: story of someone who was a skeptical atheist and through
[0:37] Speaker 2: their investigation, were led to believe in the truth of
[0:40] Speaker 2: Christianity and thus ceased being a skeptic. And while I
[0:44] Speaker 2: have framed this in a less than flattering way, they
[0:48] Speaker 2: definitely use the term skeptic to mean something like a
[0:50] Speaker 2: synonym for non believer. Because the thing is, if this
[0:54] Speaker 2: were a true story and an actual application of skepticism
[0:57] Speaker 2: led him to conclude that Christianity is true, then he
[0:59] Speaker 2: would still be a skeptic, just a Christian one. Because
[1:03] Speaker 2: skepticism is not about resisting belief at all costs. It's
[1:07] Speaker 2: about believing based on evidence. So to conflate skepticism with
[1:11] Speaker 2: non belief is to tacitly admit that there is not
[1:13] Speaker 2: sufficient evidence supporting your position in order to justify belief.
[1:17] Speaker 2: And don't forget, this supposedly true story is being told
[1:20] Speaker 2: by an actor rather than the actual person because he
[1:23] Speaker 2: wants to remain anonymous and hide his faith under a bushel,
[1:26] Speaker 2: just like Jesus said not to. You know, if I
[1:28] Speaker 2: actually knew how to use skepticism, maybe they'd concoct a
[1:31] Speaker 2: story that stands up to the smallest bit of scrutiny.
[1:33] Speaker 2: Oh well, let's go.
[1:41] Speaker 3: I'm not a Christian. I don't believe Jesus was God.
[1:45] Speaker 3: In fact, I'm not even sure he existed.
[1:48] Speaker 2: Okay, so this installment in their series is called was
[1:51] Speaker 2: Jesus a Fake? My expectation was that it was going
[1:53] Speaker 2: to be an attempt to explain away the miracles that
[1:55] Speaker 2: Jesus did while still credulously accepting that the Gospels were
[1:58] Speaker 2: accurately recording things that happened. So instead of Jesus didn't
[2:02] Speaker 2: feed thousands of people with just a couple of fish
[2:04] Speaker 2: and loaves, because that's not a thing. That's physically possible.
[2:06] Speaker 2: He'll go with, how can Jesus have fed thousands of
[2:09] Speaker 2: people with just a couple fish and loaves without actual
[2:11] Speaker 2: magic happening, and then conclude that he couldn't, therefore Christianity
[2:14] Speaker 2: is true, or rather, since they're trying to keep him skeptical,
[2:17] Speaker 2: at the end of every episode, Jesus did actual magic.
[2:20] Speaker 2: But I'm still not convinced of Christianity. But maybe I'm wrong.
[2:23] Speaker 2: Maybe this whole video will be about mythicism and will
[2:26] Speaker 2: be operating under the assumption that everyone who is not
[2:28] Speaker 2: a Christian thinks that Jesus never existed, in which case
[2:32] Speaker 2: it might be another short one, because while I certainly
[2:34] Speaker 2: do pal around with people who are mythesists, it's not
[2:36] Speaker 2: a position that I hold, nor do I find it
[2:38] Speaker 2: particularly interesting.
[2:40] Speaker 4: And if he did, the man had to be a fake.
[2:43] Speaker 2: Not necessarily a fake. Apocalyptic preachers were all over the
[2:46] Speaker 2: place in first century Judea. It is entirely possible that
[2:49] Speaker 2: Jesus fully believed in the apocalyptic message that he was preaching,
[2:52] Speaker 2: but then after his death, the story about him grew
[2:54] Speaker 2: to a point where it cannot possibly be true, not
[2:57] Speaker 2: in its entirety at any rate, Jesus doesn't have to
[2:59] Speaker 2: face anything for the story that grew around him to
[3:02] Speaker 2: be fake.
[3:03] Speaker 3: Like I said in Part one of My Journey, I
[3:05] Speaker 3: couldn't accept the miracle of the creation account caption in
[3:07] Speaker 3: the Book of Genesis.
[3:09] Speaker 4: It was too much to swallow without any proof.
[3:11] Speaker 2: But it's not just that there's not any proof. It's
[3:13] Speaker 2: that there's plenty of proof that it's not true, at
[3:16] Speaker 2: least as written in Genesis. The thing is, as to
[3:18] Speaker 2: the actual beginning of the universe, there are still enough
[3:21] Speaker 2: unknowns that you can find one to shove God into
[3:23] Speaker 2: in a vague sort of way. The Big Bang happened,
[3:25] Speaker 2: so God is the Big Banger and all that. But
[3:28] Speaker 2: Genesis doesn't say that a vague God did vague creating.
[3:32] Speaker 2: It gets specific, and if we take it literally, it
[3:35] Speaker 2: is quite wrong. Most obviously, in the order of creation
[3:38] Speaker 2: in Genesis, the Earth comes first, then the Sun, then
[3:40] Speaker 2: the stars. But out here in reality that's pretty much
[3:43] Speaker 2: exactly backward. Stars had to come first because the Earth
[3:46] Speaker 2: is made of a lot of material that was made
[3:48] Speaker 2: through stellar fusion, So stars came first, then the Sun,
[3:52] Speaker 2: which is actually just a star that is significantly closer
[3:55] Speaker 2: to us than all of the other ones and then
[3:57] Speaker 2: finally the Earth. So yeah, maybe we can't prove that
[4:00] Speaker 2: there is no distic creation god of some kind, but
[4:03] Speaker 2: if such a being exists, it ain't the Christian God.
[4:06] Speaker 3: But in Part two I learned that science doesn't currently
[4:09] Speaker 3: have the concrete answers I'm looking for either. So in
[4:11] Speaker 3: Part three I've delved into the Bible and researched the
[4:14] Speaker 3: Old Testament prophecy about this promised Savior.
[4:17] Speaker 2: And in that one we learned that this supposed skeptic
[4:20] Speaker 2: wasn't even aware that the Bible contained more books than
[4:23] Speaker 2: just the Book of Genesis, and that level of ignorance
[4:25] Speaker 2: seems to be fairly consistent throughout the series.
[4:28] Speaker 3: And how the New Testament supposedly fulfills those prophecies in
[4:32] Speaker 3: the life of Jesus.
[4:33] Speaker 2: And he was baffled at the idea that later authors
[4:35] Speaker 2: could reference earlier writings, just as any good skeptic would be.
[4:40] Speaker 3: This was extremely perplexing because the Old Testament was verifiably
[4:45] Speaker 3: written before he was born, and the fact that these
[4:48] Speaker 3: hundreds of extremely specific details could be realized in one
[4:52] Speaker 3: person is just mind blowing.
[4:55] Speaker 2: Notably, in that video, he did not actually provide much
[4:58] Speaker 2: in the way of extremely specific details. It was all
[5:01] Speaker 2: stuff like this book in the Old Testament mentions a star,
[5:04] Speaker 2: and there was a star at Jesus' birth, Or this
[5:07] Speaker 2: prophecy says that an important figure will be born sometime
[5:09] Speaker 2: around one hundred and seventy BCE. That's only a little
[5:12] Speaker 2: bit more than a century and a half away from
[5:14] Speaker 2: when Jesus was born. So it must be about Jesus.
[5:17] Speaker 4: I am very confused.
[5:20] Speaker 2: End of sentence.
[5:21] Speaker 4: We know Jesus had to be a fake.
[5:24] Speaker 3: Either his entire life was modeled to fit the storylines
[5:27] Speaker 3: of these ancient prophecies, or his life itself is one
[5:31] Speaker 3: big lie.
[5:32] Speaker 2: Not so much one big lie as a bunch of
[5:34] Speaker 2: smaller legends that were molded by the communities during oral
[5:37] Speaker 2: retelling to fit the important stories and prophecies that they
[5:40] Speaker 2: were already familiar with. This is a normal thing that
[5:43] Speaker 2: humans do all the time. Why would it be any
[5:45] Speaker 2: different for the story of Jesus. Hell, apologists are still
[5:48] Speaker 2: doing it with the story of Jesus. Anytime there's a
[5:51] Speaker 2: contradiction between the gospels, apologists are happy to completely invent
[5:55] Speaker 2: details that are not made evident by any of the
[5:57] Speaker 2: stories in order to smooth over the contradiction. Also, people
[6:01] Speaker 2: often exaggerate and invent details in stories that they are
[6:03] Speaker 2: retelling when they want you to believe that the story
[6:05] Speaker 2: they're telling is true. Just look at the pastor in
[6:07] Speaker 2: last week's video with his story about a college freshman
[6:10] Speaker 2: in her woman's studies course being told throughout the entirety
[6:12] Speaker 2: of every class that Christianity is dumb and you're dumb
[6:16] Speaker 2: for believing in it. There is zero chance that it
[6:19] Speaker 2: actually happened like that, but I guarantee that a not
[6:22] Speaker 2: insignificant number of people in his congregation believe that that's
[6:25] Speaker 2: exactly how it happened. I'm sure there was a kernel
[6:28] Speaker 2: of truth somewhere in the story, but it has been
[6:30] Speaker 2: so distorted as to effectively be entirely fiction at this point,
[6:34] Speaker 2: and the preacher likely convinced himself that he was only
[6:37] Speaker 2: exaggerating a little bit here and there for effect. It's
[6:40] Speaker 2: for a good cause of saving souls anyway, so it'll
[6:42] Speaker 2: work out okay in the end. Given that we can
[6:44] Speaker 2: see this sort of thing happening today, why would we
[6:46] Speaker 2: assume that it did not happen in the thirty or
[6:48] Speaker 2: so years between when Jesus died and when the First
[6:50] Speaker 2: Gospel was written. And let's not forget that the video
[6:52] Speaker 2: I'm responding to right now is engaged in the same behavior.
[6:56] Speaker 2: So something something stones, something something glass houses.
[7:00] Speaker 3: So I decided to research the life of Jesus and
[7:03] Speaker 3: the alleged miracles he performed.
[7:05] Speaker 2: All right, it's looking like my initial assessment was correct.
[7:07] Speaker 2: We're going to assume that the Bible accurately records the
[7:10] Speaker 2: things that Jesus did and then try to find naturalistic
[7:12] Speaker 2: explanations for them, rather than believing that they were miracles,
[7:15] Speaker 2: when in reality, the more plausible scenario is that human
[7:18] Speaker 2: authors writing after several decades of legendary growth had happened.
[7:22] Speaker 2: We're just writing things down that were part of the legend,
[7:24] Speaker 2: but that didn't actually happen in reality.
[7:27] Speaker 3: But I didn't want to use the Bible as my
[7:29] Speaker 3: only resource because I don't believe in miracles, and I
[7:33] Speaker 3: certainly don't believe in agent prophecies fulfilled. I started by
[7:36] Speaker 3: asking the question of whether Jesus even existed.
[7:40] Speaker 2: Sake, man, make up your mind. I guess my initial
[7:43] Speaker 2: assessment was wrong. There's a lot of film material in
[7:46] Speaker 2: this episode.
[7:47] Speaker 3: It would be the simplest explanation if the New Testament
[7:51] Speaker 3: was a made up story to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies.
[7:54] Speaker 2: This has come around from the ridiculous claim that the
[7:56] Speaker 2: Old Testament was either written or modified after the life
[7:58] Speaker 2: of Jesus in order to make it fit with him.
[8:01] Speaker 3: The New Testament writers would be free to describe these
[8:03] Speaker 3: miraculous events and attribute them to someone who never even lived.
[8:07] Speaker 3: I was curious whether any other major religions mention Jesus,
[8:10] Speaker 3: and I was surprised to find that Jesus is mentioned
[8:13] Speaker 3: in the Jewish Talmud and the Quran.
[8:16] Speaker 2: Regarding the Talmud, to quote Professor Daniel Lasker's summary of
[8:19] Speaker 2: Verbinic scholar R. Travers Herford's position on the matter, quote,
[8:22] Speaker 2: the Talmudic yessues do indeed refer to Jesus of Nazareth,
[8:26] Speaker 2: but the citations concerning him reflect non historical oral traditions
[8:29] Speaker 2: which circulated among Jews, and are not based on the
[8:31] Speaker 2: written Gospels or other more authentic records of the life
[8:34] Speaker 2: of Jesus. One can learn nothing about the historical Jesus
[8:36] Speaker 2: from rabbinic accounts. At most, one can learn from them
[8:39] Speaker 2: something about rabbinic attitudes towards Jesus. In some the Talmud
[8:43] Speaker 2: does make reference to the Christian Jesus, but has nothing
[8:46] Speaker 2: to offer the searcher for the historical Jesus. As to
[8:49] Speaker 2: the Koran, I'm not sure why we take the word
[8:51] Speaker 2: of a book written hundreds of years after the life
[8:53] Speaker 2: of Jesus as an authority on the life of Jesus,
[8:55] Speaker 2: especially when the Koran explicitly states that Jesus was not crucified.
[8:59] Speaker 2: Kuran fifty seven says quote that they said in boast
[9:03] Speaker 2: we killed Christ, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger
[9:05] Speaker 2: of Allah. But they killed him not nor crucified him,
[9:08] Speaker 2: But so it was made to appear to them, and
[9:10] Speaker 2: those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no
[9:12] Speaker 2: certain knowledge, but only conjecture to follow for of a
[9:15] Speaker 2: surety they killed him not. For my part, the most
[9:18] Speaker 2: convincing evidence for me that the character of Jesus in
[9:20] Speaker 2: the Bible was actually based on a real guy is
[9:23] Speaker 2: the accounting Galatians too, of Paul visiting James, Peter and
[9:26] Speaker 2: John in Jerusalem and publicly calling out Peter for hypocrisy.
[9:29] Speaker 2: If Jesus were just made up, then it's weird that
[9:32] Speaker 2: not only do some of his more prominent disciples exist,
[9:35] Speaker 2: but also that one of the most powerful figures in
[9:37] Speaker 2: early Christendom would have public beef with them.
[9:40] Speaker 3: Surprisingly, Islam's religious texts goes in unexpected detail about the
[9:44] Speaker 3: virgin birth, Jesus, being sent by God and performing miracles.
[9:48] Speaker 2: Islam is to Christianity what Christianity is to Judaism. Being
[9:52] Speaker 2: surprised that Muslims believe in at least some of the
[9:54] Speaker 2: supernatural elements of the Jesus story would be like being
[9:56] Speaker 2: surprised that Christians believe that Moses split the Red Sea.
[10:00] Speaker 3: Suss apparently don't believe Jesus was God, but they do
[10:03] Speaker 3: believe he was a true prophet who performed actual miracles.
[10:06] Speaker 2: Yes, one that was sent by a law. Do you
[10:08] Speaker 2: accept that part of the story. Why are you picking
[10:11] Speaker 2: and choosing? Or is this where you suddenly start to
[10:13] Speaker 2: understand that an ancient text is not considered reliable as
[10:15] Speaker 2: a whole, but is evaluated on a claim by claim
[10:18] Speaker 2: basis weird that you only seem to grasp that when
[10:20] Speaker 2: it works in Christianity's favor.
[10:22] Speaker 3: While this was surprising, the Koran was written hundreds of
[10:25] Speaker 3: years after Jesus's time and probably had to deal with
[10:28] Speaker 3: stories about it in some way, because by then Christianity
[10:31] Speaker 3: was already well established. I decided to disregard this source
[10:35] Speaker 3: as repeating a previously told, untrue story.
[10:37] Speaker 2: I like how his default assumption for the Bible is
[10:39] Speaker 2: that it's true and accurate, but for the Koran, he's
[10:42] Speaker 2: just dismissing it because of how late it was written.
[10:44] Speaker 2: Like dude, the reason the Gospels record Jesus as having
[10:47] Speaker 2: filled Old Testament prophecies are also because they were written
[10:50] Speaker 2: hundreds of years after the Old Testament books. But apparently
[10:54] Speaker 2: that never occurred to him.
[10:55] Speaker 3: So I wanted to see what the ancient Greeks, Romans,
[10:59] Speaker 3: and Jews who despise Christians had to say about Jesus.
[11:03] Speaker 3: I decided to limit my research to surviving documents written
[11:06] Speaker 3: within the first or second centuries, soon enough after jesus
[11:10] Speaker 3: death to be original, and not rewrites of other fictitious material.
[11:14] Speaker 2: Take in bets now as to whether he brings up
[11:15] Speaker 2: the Testimonium Flavianum, and when he does, whether or not
[11:18] Speaker 2: he mentions that scholars universally agree that most, if not all,
[11:22] Speaker 2: of it was Christian interpolation.
[11:24] Speaker 3: I was actually able to find many sources that fit
[11:27] Speaker 3: this requirement, including ancient texts from a Roman senator Tacitus,
[11:32] Speaker 3: a Jewish priest and historian Josephus, and a Greek satirist Lucian,
[11:36] Speaker 3: as well as several others. These documents refer to him
[11:40] Speaker 3: as Jesus or Christ and provide numerous other details about
[11:43] Speaker 3: his life.
[11:44] Speaker 2: What details. Tacitus just references Jesus as the guy that
[11:47] Speaker 2: Christians believe in and says that he was executed Josephus,
[11:50] Speaker 2: not Josephus. Yes, I'm gonna get all high mighty when
[11:53] Speaker 2: I actually know how to pronounce something mention Jesus twice
[11:56] Speaker 2: that I am aware of one. In the infamous Testimonium Flavianum,
[11:59] Speaker 2: which is very obvious Christian interpolation, he wax his poetic
[12:02] Speaker 2: about how Jesus was this great miracle worker and indeed
[12:05] Speaker 2: was the Messiah, confirming that he had risen from the
[12:08] Speaker 2: dead as the prophets had foretold, and so on. Scholars
[12:11] Speaker 2: that accept this passage as authentic are in the extreme minority.
[12:15] Speaker 2: Most of the debates surrounding it is about just how
[12:17] Speaker 2: much of it is Christian interpolation. The second mention is
[12:20] Speaker 2: the story of the high priest Unanus, which I'm sure
[12:22] Speaker 2: is pronounced Aninas, but it's spelled an Anus, and his
[12:25] Speaker 2: behavior in the story kind of matches that name, So
[12:27] Speaker 2: that's what I'm going with. But it's the story of
[12:29] Speaker 2: him being stripped of the priesthood, at least partly because
[12:32] Speaker 2: of his execution of James, the brother of Jesus. In
[12:35] Speaker 2: the story, he refers to James as the brother of
[12:37] Speaker 2: Jesus who was called Christ. This passage is authentic, but
[12:41] Speaker 2: there is debate about whether the who was called Christ
[12:43] Speaker 2: bit was an interpolation. Either way, best we have here
[12:46] Speaker 2: is that Jesus had a brother named James. Lucian wrote
[12:49] Speaker 2: a satirical play where the main character takes advantage of
[12:51] Speaker 2: the gullible Christians, tricking them into thinking that he was
[12:54] Speaker 2: a God and living off of their donations, but the
[12:57] Speaker 2: jig is up when they find him breaking their dietary
[12:59] Speaker 2: laws result in his excommunication. It's generally accepted that his
[13:03] Speaker 2: view of Christians was not a Christian interpolation, pretty much
[13:06] Speaker 2: based on how wrong he was about them, And while
[13:08] Speaker 2: he was wrong about second century Christians, he might just
[13:11] Speaker 2: have me believing in prophecy based on how fundamentalist Christians
[13:14] Speaker 2: treat Trump as an almost godlike figure while he is
[13:17] Speaker 2: so clearly grifting the shit out of them. So from
[13:20] Speaker 2: the sources that he mentioned, if we ignore the obvious
[13:22] Speaker 2: Christian interpolation, the best case scenario here is that Jesus
[13:26] Speaker 2: was a wise guy who had a brother named James
[13:28] Speaker 2: and was executed by Pilot. That's not exactly a lot
[13:31] Speaker 2: to go on.
[13:32] Speaker 3: The findings tend to make it impossible to say that
[13:34] Speaker 3: Jesus did not exist because there are too many references
[13:37] Speaker 3: about him from sources that were actually against Christianity.
[13:40] Speaker 2: I know of several mythsist who would disagree with that assessment.
[13:43] Speaker 2: Most of the references to Jesus from hostile sources are
[13:46] Speaker 2: just people explaining what Christians believed, not actually corroborating details
[13:50] Speaker 2: about his story. But that's not a hill that I'm
[13:52] Speaker 2: willing to die on, so I'm not a mythicist.
[13:55] Speaker 3: To summarize the information from these non biblical, non Christian sources,
[14:00] Speaker 3: I had to conclude that a man named Jesus existed
[14:02] Speaker 3: who was also called Christ. Jesus was crucified by conscious Pilot,
[14:07] Speaker 3: a ruling prefect Jesus had a brother named James who
[14:10] Speaker 3: was stolen to dead for his belief in Jesus.
[14:13] Speaker 2: Okay, where'd you pull that from? The Josephus quote about
[14:16] Speaker 2: James just says that he was Jesus' brother and the
[14:18] Speaker 2: high priest and Anus accused him, along with a group
[14:20] Speaker 2: of unnamed others, of being breakers of the law, then
[14:24] Speaker 2: he had them executed. The focus of the story is
[14:27] Speaker 2: on an Anus waiting until others who would oppose him
[14:29] Speaker 2: were either dead or absent before going on a power trip.
[14:32] Speaker 2: It says nothing about James being a Christian or the
[14:35] Speaker 2: group of others that were executed along with James. It's
[14:38] Speaker 2: just a story of a guy going on a power trip.
[14:41] Speaker 3: Jesus had many followers who were killed for their faith
[14:43] Speaker 3: in him.
[14:44] Speaker 2: The way you're wording that is a bit of a stretch.
[14:46] Speaker 2: I presume that conclusion comes from tacitus account of neuroblaming
[14:49] Speaker 2: Christians for the fire in Rome, resulting in many of
[14:51] Speaker 2: them being executed in some pretty horrendous ways. So technically
[14:55] Speaker 2: what you said is true. But since we're in the
[14:58] Speaker 2: middle of a discussion about the details of jesus life,
[15:01] Speaker 2: saying that Jesus had followers who were killed for their
[15:03] Speaker 2: faith in him. Makes it sound like these followers knew
[15:06] Speaker 2: Jesus while he was alive, which is not at all
[15:08] Speaker 2: apparent from any non Christian sources.
[15:11] Speaker 3: Now, what I find even more troubling is that some
[15:14] Speaker 3: of these texts actually mention the miracle as Jesus performed.
[15:17] Speaker 2: And I'm betting that this is where he's going to
[15:19] Speaker 2: get into the specifics of the Testimonium Flavianum, but not
[15:22] Speaker 2: enough of those specifics to figure out that scholars agree
[15:24] Speaker 2: that it's at least partially a Christian interpolation.
[15:27] Speaker 3: And as I said before, many of these writers were
[15:29] Speaker 3: against Christianity. Most of them were atheists or members of
[15:33] Speaker 3: other religions, and yet they still mention the miracles.
[15:36] Speaker 2: I would like you to explicitly state which ones were atheists.
[15:39] Speaker 2: I don't think I've come across a first or century
[15:41] Speaker 2: historian that would be described that way. As to the
[15:43] Speaker 2: members of other religions, It's not really surprising that a
[15:45] Speaker 2: pagan historian would accept that Jesus was a magician of
[15:48] Speaker 2: some kind, But I'm not sure how an historian who
[15:51] Speaker 2: believed in magic credulously accepted claims of magic is supposed
[15:54] Speaker 2: to be convincing. To me, this would be the equivalent
[15:56] Speaker 2: of a Hindu citing a Christian apologist saying that the
[15:59] Speaker 2: miraculous healing a tree dad Vishnu was actually a demon
[16:02] Speaker 2: as evidence for Vishnu.
[16:04] Speaker 3: Joseph Is went so far as it described the resurrection
[16:06] Speaker 3: of Jesus as though it were fact.
[16:09] Speaker 2: And there it is that is actually one of the
[16:11] Speaker 2: ways that we know that this was a Christian interpolation,
[16:14] Speaker 2: because a Jewish historian that by all accounts never became
[16:16] Speaker 2: a Christian describing Jesus as the Messiah who really did
[16:20] Speaker 2: come back from the dead is just wild, especially given
[16:23] Speaker 2: that elsewhere in his works he described the Emperor Vespasian
[16:26] Speaker 2: as having fulfilled Messianic prophecy. There's also the fact that
[16:29] Speaker 2: there are no writings of any important Christian authors or
[16:32] Speaker 2: historians that show any awareness of this Josepha's passage before
[16:36] Speaker 2: Eusebius in the fourth century, and there were plenty of
[16:39] Speaker 2: such authors that showed an awareness of the works of Josephus,
[16:42] Speaker 2: like Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Ireneus, Clement of Alexandria,
[16:47] Speaker 2: Julius Africanus, Tertullian Hippolytus, and Origin, among others. Yes, this
[16:52] Speaker 2: is an argument from silence, but it is a silence
[16:54] Speaker 2: that speaks volumes to have a feigned Jewish historian confirmed
[16:57] Speaker 2: both the resurrection of Jesus and his days Messiah would
[17:01] Speaker 2: definitely be worth bringing up when writing their apologetics defending Christianity,
[17:05] Speaker 2: but none of them even seemed aware of it until
[17:07] Speaker 2: centuries after Josephus died. Also, remember that thing last week
[17:11] Speaker 2: where the preacher said that we only have one manuscript
[17:13] Speaker 2: of any of Josepha's works that dates back to before
[17:16] Speaker 2: the ninth century. It wasn't true. There are several Latin
[17:19] Speaker 2: manuscripts that go back to the sixth century, but the
[17:21] Speaker 2: oldest manuscript that actually contains the Testimonium Flavianum is from
[17:24] Speaker 2: the eleventh century. And one of the interesting things about
[17:27] Speaker 2: Josephus is that his works were not generally copied by
[17:30] Speaker 2: Jewish scribes, either because they considered him a trader or
[17:33] Speaker 2: because he wrote in Greek, which fell out of favor
[17:35] Speaker 2: with Jewish scribes shortly after he died, so the only
[17:38] Speaker 2: surviving copies of his works were preserved by Christian scribes
[17:42] Speaker 2: who thought his work important as it provided the details
[17:45] Speaker 2: of lives of several figures that make brief appearances in
[17:47] Speaker 2: the New Testament. Given how loose the Christian scribes were
[17:50] Speaker 2: with the copying of letters and books that they thought
[17:52] Speaker 2: of as scripture, I would be surprised, indeed, if the
[17:55] Speaker 2: works of Josephus made it through the copying process completely unscathed.
[17:58] Speaker 4: Why would he do that?
[18:00] Speaker 2: You wouldn't, which is why we know that it was
[18:01] Speaker 2: a later insertion.
[18:03] Speaker 4: I found something in the Bible that really bothers me?
[18:05] Speaker 2: Is it the approval of slavery, treating rape as a
[18:08] Speaker 2: property crime committed against whichever man owns the woman. Jesus
[18:11] Speaker 2: telling people to bring his enemies and slaughter them at
[18:13] Speaker 2: his feet, The multiple genocides commanded by God, the punishment
[18:17] Speaker 2: of eternal torture for minor sins that don't actually hurt anyone.
[18:20] Speaker 2: And I could keep going. There is lots in the
[18:22] Speaker 2: Bible that really bothers me. It wouldn't bother me so
[18:25] Speaker 2: much if there weren't a large segment of the population
[18:27] Speaker 2: who think that it's a book that gives them direction
[18:29] Speaker 2: as to how they are to live their lives. But
[18:31] Speaker 2: there are so.
[18:32] Speaker 4: It does in one Corinthians, chapter fifteen.
[18:35] Speaker 3: The apostle Paul names at least thirteen specific people who
[18:38] Speaker 3: saw Jesus after his resurrection, and then says there are
[18:41] Speaker 3: five hundred more witnesses to the resurrection.
[18:44] Speaker 2: He mentions them in what is agreed by scholars to
[18:46] Speaker 2: be a credle statement, a statement repeated by believers to
[18:50] Speaker 2: reaffirm their beliefs. Such statements are not exactly known for
[18:53] Speaker 2: their rigorous historiographical methods.
[18:56] Speaker 3: This is written soon enough after Jesus's death that Paul
[18:59] Speaker 3: actually challenged readers to find these eyewitnesses because many of
[19:03] Speaker 3: them are still alive.
[19:04] Speaker 2: He mentioned that they are still alive. At no point
[19:07] Speaker 2: did he say go check with them to make sure
[19:09] Speaker 2: I'm not lying. Those are not the same thing. And
[19:12] Speaker 2: even if he did come right out and say go
[19:14] Speaker 2: check with them if you don't believe me, the fact
[19:16] Speaker 2: of the matter is that we have zero accounts from
[19:19] Speaker 2: anyone who may have decided to check for themselves, so,
[19:22] Speaker 2: as it turns out, we don't actually know what such
[19:24] Speaker 2: people would have found. This was also in a letter
[19:26] Speaker 2: to a church in corinth about events that supposedly happened
[19:29] Speaker 2: in Jerusalem, a journey that, according to the cheapest fruit
[19:32] Speaker 2: I could find on the Stanford Geospatial Network model of
[19:34] Speaker 2: the Roman world would cost over three hundred dinaris per passenger. Oh,
[19:39] Speaker 2: that's also only one way. If you want to get
[19:41] Speaker 2: back to Corinth, that's another four and fifty denaries. According
[19:44] Speaker 2: to Matthew twenty two, a typical farm labor could expect
[19:47] Speaker 2: to be paid a single denarius per day, So it
[19:49] Speaker 2: would cost roughly two years pay for anyone in Corinth
[19:53] Speaker 2: to actually fact check Paul's claim. So how many people
[19:56] Speaker 2: in Corinth do you think actually sacrifice two years worth
[19:59] Speaker 2: of pay, as as well as at least a month
[20:01] Speaker 2: of travel time in order to do this fact checking?
[20:04] Speaker 2: If I were a hazard guess I'd say zero. And
[20:06] Speaker 2: since that's how many fact checking accounts of this claim
[20:09] Speaker 2: that we have the numbers back me up on this.
[20:11] Speaker 3: You would think that the Roman, Greek and Jewish authors
[20:15] Speaker 3: who despise Christianity would take up the challenge and debunk
[20:19] Speaker 3: the resurrection. I couldn't find one ancient text that deny
[20:23] Speaker 3: Jesus existence or even attempted to debunk the miracles as faith.
[20:27] Speaker 2: His wording here is suspiciously narrow, because there definitely were
[20:31] Speaker 2: authors from the first and second centuries that were writing
[20:33] Speaker 2: against Christianity. Celsus, for instance, the only thing Celsus is
[20:37] Speaker 2: really known for is vehemently opposing Christianity. His books were
[20:40] Speaker 2: banned by the Church in the fifth century and survive
[20:43] Speaker 2: only as quoted by Origin of Alexandria in his work
[20:46] Speaker 2: Contra Celsus. Celsus did accept jesus miracles, but he attributed
[20:50] Speaker 2: them to Jesus being a sorcerer rather than the Son
[20:52] Speaker 2: of God. What's more, many of the arguments that Celsus
[20:55] Speaker 2: used against Christianity came from an earlier author referred to
[20:58] Speaker 2: by Origin as the jew of so Elsis, indicating that
[21:01] Speaker 2: there were indeed early authors writing counter apologetics works, and
[21:05] Speaker 2: of course this is ignoring the evidence from the Bible itself.
[21:07] Speaker 2: Matthew includes the story of the Guard of the Tomb
[21:10] Speaker 2: specifically as a polemic against Jewish counter apologetics. At the
[21:13] Speaker 2: end of the Guard of the Tomb story, when they
[21:15] Speaker 2: have reported to the chief priests instead of to their
[21:17] Speaker 2: own superiors for some reason, Matthew twenty eight twelve through
[21:20] Speaker 2: fifteen says quote, and when they had assembled with the
[21:23] Speaker 2: elders in taking counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of
[21:25] Speaker 2: money to the soldiers, and said, tell people, his disciples
[21:28] Speaker 2: came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.
[21:30] Speaker 2: And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will
[21:32] Speaker 2: satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. So they
[21:34] Speaker 2: took the money and did as they were directed. And
[21:36] Speaker 2: this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.
[21:40] Speaker 2: Why the need to point out that the Jews were
[21:41] Speaker 2: spreading this story if that weren't actually a story being spread?
[21:45] Speaker 2: And to bring it back to Celsus, remember that his
[21:47] Speaker 2: work only survives as quoted by a Christian author because
[21:51] Speaker 2: his book was banned in the fifth century. His was
[21:53] Speaker 2: not the only one banned. Several books were deemed heretical
[21:56] Speaker 2: and banned. Some have similarly survived in the form of
[21:58] Speaker 2: quotes by Christian authors. But how many so called heretical
[22:02] Speaker 2: works opposing Christianity have been permanently lost through such bands
[22:06] Speaker 2: we will never know.
[22:08] Speaker 4: I am very confused.
[22:10] Speaker 3: Obviously, I still don't believe in miracles or ancient prophecies,
[22:15] Speaker 3: but I want to know the truth.
[22:17] Speaker 2: If you actually wanted to know the truth, then you
[22:19] Speaker 2: might have dug deep enough to come across some of
[22:20] Speaker 2: this very easy to find information while doing your skeptical research.
[22:25] Speaker 4: No one can fool the entire world without any help.
[22:28] Speaker 2: No one has. If he had fooled the entire world,
[22:31] Speaker 2: then the entire world would be Christian, but that has
[22:34] Speaker 2: never been the case. Now you might say, I'm taking
[22:36] Speaker 2: this guy's hyperbole a bit too literally. Clearly he just
[22:38] Speaker 2: means a significant number of people, not everyone. But his
[22:42] Speaker 2: language is playing into the Christian apologetics idea that early
[22:44] Speaker 2: Christianity spread unusually quickly. This is a claim for which
[22:48] Speaker 2: there is no evidence. It wasn't until Emperor Constantine made
[22:51] Speaker 2: it the official religion of the Roman Empire that it
[22:54] Speaker 2: really started spreading fast.
[22:56] Speaker 3: So those closest to him had to have known the truth.
[22:59] Speaker 3: I think from my next you're research, I'm going to
[23:01] Speaker 3: investigate those people closest to Jesus.
[23:03] Speaker 2: Okay, so the next one is going to be they
[23:05] Speaker 2: wouldn't die for a lie? Apparently. Great, that's it for
[23:09] Speaker 2: this one. Today's comment today it comes to us from
[23:11] Speaker 2: Maxwell McCoy, who says, it takes more faith to be
[23:13] Speaker 2: an atheist than it does to believe in God. Take
[23:16] Speaker 2: the Bible away, and there's still more evidence for a creator.
[23:18] Speaker 2: Don't deceive yourselves, analyze the evidence honestly, and I know
[23:22] Speaker 2: from reading through some of those twenty three replies to
[23:24] Speaker 2: this one that the evidence he's talking about are the
[23:26] Speaker 2: existence of intangible things like thoughts, consciousness, and objective morality.
[23:31] Speaker 2: For thoughts and consciousness, I wonder why brain activity is
[23:34] Speaker 2: considered insufficient to explain them. And for the existence of
[23:36] Speaker 2: objective morality, that's another claim for which you would need
[23:39] Speaker 2: to provide evidence. It is not itself evidence, and I
[23:43] Speaker 2: also have videos explaining why I don't think it exists
[23:45] Speaker 2: in the way that apologists want it to exist. So yeah,
[23:48] Speaker 2: I have analyzed the evidence honestly, and my conclusion is
[23:51] Speaker 2: that no God has needed to explain any of it.
[23:53] Speaker 2: Thanks for watching. I'll be back next Friday with more,
[23:55] Speaker 2: but if you need to get your rite e fix
[23:57] Speaker 2: in before then, I livestream with service every Wednesday eight
[23:59] Speaker 2: thirty Eastern on my other channel, A Watering Hole. Thanks
[24:01] Speaker 2: to Piper for being my editor, and special thanks as
[24:03] Speaker 2: always to my patrons who are the ancient counter apologists
[24:06] Speaker 2: who accept just enough of Christianity's claims to have fallen
[24:08] Speaker 2: outside of the exclusion criteria that are my channel. If
[24:11] Speaker 2: you'd like fake skeptics to pretend they looked into everything
[24:14] Speaker 2: while ignoring the obvious. You can join us on Patreon
[24:16] Speaker 2: for as little as a dollar per week over at
[24:18] Speaker 2: patreon dot com, slash vice Rhino, or by supporting the
[24:20] Speaker 2: channel and other methods be found at Links of Advice
[24:22] Speaker 2: rhinol dot com, which is also where you find links
[24:24] Speaker 2: are other products if you wherever, we want to send
[24:26] Speaker 2: po box description something something, See you next time.
[25:00] Speaker 5: Better better peep.
[25:02] Speaker 2: I never finished the script. I will return with the
[25:09] Speaker 2: thanks for watching that

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