I did address it. I provided 2 URLs saying he died after 60 CE. The URL provided by you said 73 CE. You have provided no URL claiming a date of 50-52 CE for the death of Gamaliel.

“Note that BA didn’t reference the CRC “Rubber Book” in his post on organic compounds on Enceladus, but we would be amiss to take that as an indication that the “Rubber Book” doesn’t exist.”

If BA was using numbers from the CRC book and was challenged on them by some contrarian poster (e.g., myself), I bet he would mention that his source was the CRC book. Paul was being constantly challenged and sometimes even physically assaulted during his preaching. It would have been very advantageous for him to use material obtained from an actual eyewitness to the founder of his religion.

“the early church claimed the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew”

So the Q Gospel is fanciful but a Hebrew version of the Gospel of Matthew is not?

The best URL I’ve been able to find on the supposed Gamaliel parody is:
http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=382786

Apparently the whole matter was brought to public attention in a 1999 book by Israel Yuval entitled: “Passover And Easter: Origin And History To Modern Times”. Some quotes from the web site:

“Rabban Gamaliel, a leader of rabbinical scholars in about 70 A.D., is “considered to have authored a sophisticated parody of the Gospel according to Matthew.”"

This may not be Gamaliel I being talked about at all, but rather his son Gamaliel II who was the leader of the Sanhedrin after the sack of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Gamaliel I is known to have been sympathetic to early Christians but not so his son. It is doubtful that Gamaliel I would have composed a biting satire about people whom he was sympathetic to.

“Jesus is called a Nazarene, one of the names given him. Another dubs him Yeshua Ben Pandira, which means Jesus born-of-a-virgin in a combination of Hebrew and Greek.”

Born of a virgin? Remember, these are orthodox Jews who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. It would have been blasphemy for them to say that anyone had a divine birth.

“In Rabbi Gamaliel´s story, a daughter whose father had died offers a golden lamp as a bribe to a Christian judge known for his honesty, seeking a decision that would allow her to share her father´s estate with her brother. When the judge suggests that dividing the estate would be proper on the basis of a new law that had superseded the ancient Law of Moses, Gamaliel argues that the judge is wrong and loosely quotes a statement attributed to Jesus´ Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. “Look further in the book, and it is written in it, ´I have not come to take away from the Law of Moses nor add to the Law of Moses … ´” Gamaliel replies, and wins the case on the basis of that argument or the bribe he gave the judge — a “Libyan ass.” The Libyan ass itself is a reference to Jesus and the mount he rode into Jerusalem.”

The actual verses in the King James Bible this is supposedly a parody of are:

Matthew 5:17:
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”

Matthew 21:7:
“And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.”

The first supposed allusion is not exact although we don’t know the original Greek version of the text being referred to. For the second supposed allusion there is no mention of Jesus riding on a Libyan ass in Matthew so it’s not exact either. So I’m not seeing the alleged parody here which is supposed to exist. Maybe it’s more in the eye of the beholder.

The fact that Paul didn’t specifically reference either the Gospels of Matthew or Peter is no indication that these works didn’t exist. Note that BA didn’t reference the CRC “Rubber Book” in his post on organic compounds on Enceladus, but we would be amiss to take that as an indication that the “Rubber Book” doesn’t exist.

Thus the lack of a cite by Paul falls into the realm of speculation. What we need is something concrete. Like the date of the death of Gamaliel the Elder. Since you haven’t addressed that, I take it that you haven’t found hard confirmation, either, which is a shame. If Gamaliel the Elder died after Paul (and Paul is thought to have died during the reign of Nero), then we have the possibility that you are correct. If, however, Gamaliel died from 50-52 AD, then what we have is that Paul didn’t see fit to cite the Gospel of Matthew.

This falls into as much speculation as assuming a lack of cite = lack of existence, but it occurs to me that some in the early church claimed the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. If so, then Paul’s audience, who were mostly Gentiles, might not have been able to read it.

But this is all speculation. What we need it the date of the death of Gamaliel the Elder.

Oh, C’mon KC, now you’re stretching credulity. You don’t think that Paul would have mentioned the Gospel of Matthew in any of his letters if it had been in his possession? I find that farfetched. Instead, his 1st letter to the Corinthians would have went something like the following:

“Dear Brothers in Christ,

Along with this letter I am sending a copy of a most wonderful gospel called the Gospel of Matthew which has just come into my possession. It was written by an actual eyewitness to the many miracles performed by Our Lord and by a man who was one of Our Lord’s twelve chosen disciples. May it strengthen you in your faith, blah, blah, blah…”

The only rational conclusion is that such a document did not exist at the time Paul was preaching. Otherwise he would have snatched it up and made it the basis of his preaching and the basis of his epistles.

I don’t know if any of these URLs are worth a plug nickel but I’ve found the following:

http://www.spock.com/Gamaliel
“Gamaliel the Elder, or Rabbi Gamaliel I, was the grandson of the great Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder. He was a leading authority in the Sanhedrin in the mid first century. He died nine years before the destruction of Jerusalem (63 AD).”

http://latter-rain.com/ltrain/gama.htm
“The grace that Gamaliel showed to the Christians lasted among the Jews for some time after that, perhaps several years until the stoning of Stephen. In the meantime the Christians had multiplied rapidly in Jerusalem even winning over many of the priests. This moderation permitted the new Christians to organize into a church; the repression and persecution that followed scattered the church all over the world. A tradition has it that Gamaliel finally became a Christian and baptized by Peter but remained a member of the Sanhedrin. The Jews say he died a Pharisee about 62 AD. The Catholic Encyclopedia records that his body was discovered in the fifth century and is said to be preserved at Pisa, in Italy.”

So yes, there are some web sites placing the death of Gamaliel I about a decade after you do. A more important question would be how do we know for a fact that Gamaliel wrote the parody to begin with?

As to the dates, it’s critical. Yes, the article gave a date of AD 73. That would imply that Gamaliel the Elder died around that time. Yet, as I said, what I have indicates that he died sometime from AD 50 – AD 52. In all seriousness I ask if you have a reference which shows that Gamaliel died after AD 52, because if so, it would raise the upper limit of when the Gospel of Matthew was written. This isn’t a challenge; it’s a request for information, and if there’s evidence that Gamaliel the Elder lived to 73 AD, I’m open to changing my assessment.

Even the link you provided states:

“The parody, written by a rabbi known as Gamaliel, is believed by some well-respected liberal Christian scholars to have been written about A.D. 73 or earlier.”

But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the parody of Gamaliel was indeed written sometime before 50 CE which means that the Gospel of Matthew was written even earlier, say 45 CE or so. This is smack dab in the middle of St. Paul’s missionary journeys. If this gospel was so well known to the Sanhedrin why is it that it seems to be completely unknown to Paul? None of the Pauline epistles make any mention of it or use any language from it. Please explain why not.

Remember that survey done a few months ago in the UK? The one that turned up that many teens there don’t think Winston Churchill was real?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/04/nhistory104.xml

We’re not even a century past WWII yet. I don’t find it odd that some as early as the 2nd Century would have doubts about the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

http://www.forananswer.org/Top_Ath/Matthew%20in%20Talmud.htm

The trouble is not that it’s not on the WWW, but “where” and “how” it’s at. I’d rather have a URL to a more authoritative source, but this will have to do.

The key to putting an upper limit to when the Gospel of Matthew was written is the death of Gamaliel. This would have been Gamaliel the Elder, the teacher of Saul of Tarsus and the Gamaliel mentioned in Acts. I have down that he died around AD 50. A search also turns up dates around AD 52. If Gamaliel the Elder died later than 52 AD, then it moves the upper limit up. If you know of a reference to a different year for his death, I’d be interested, for obvious reasons.

Looking over the link above, I see something I didn’t remember:

“In the second century A.D., Rabbi Judah Ha Nasi (A.D. 135-200) purged the Mishnah, part of the Talmud, of many references to Christianity and those who adhered to it. But not everything was edited out.”

This sounds like the answer to your question about a contemporary record of Jesus of Nazareth. I knew of a couple of references, but this suggests there were once more. Note that this is from a source that didn’t consider Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God.

Yes, but without documents with the dates on them or containing references to known historical events, this is just as much conjecture as the Q Gospel.

FYI, I don’t agree with Earl Doherty (author of the Jesus Puzzle) that we can definitely disprove the existence of Jesus. At this point in time the evidence is too muddled to make a final conclusion either way. But I think Doherty does bring up some troubling facts for those who maintain the historicity of Jesus.

http://www.jesuspuzzle.com

IMHO the most damaging is what some of the 2nd century CE Christian apologists wrote. For example, Minucius Felix writing in the 2nd century CE and defending his religion had this to say:

“These and similar indecencies we do not wish to hear; it is disgraceful having to defend ourselves from such charges. People who live a chaste and virtuous life are falsely charged by you with acts which we would not consider possible, except that we see you doing them yourselves. Moreover, when you attribute to our religion the worship of a criminal and his cross, you wander far from the truth in thinking that a criminal deserved, or that a mortal man could be able, to be believed in as God. Miserable indeed is that man whose whole hope is dependent on a mortal, for such hope ceases with his death . . . .”

So this is a 2nd Century CE Christian denying the historicity of Christ. At the very least this means that less than two centuries after the death of a real man named Jesus there were followers who didn’t believe he had been a real man. That seems very bizarre to me and I wonder how it’s compatible with a historical Jesus. It would be like finding modern Americans who believe that Abraham Lincoln was a spiritual being, and not a man.

I cannot find much on the Internet concerning the Gamaliel parody. Perhaps you have a URL you could share with us?

The one I found:

http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=382786

talks about the parody being authored before 70 CE:

“But if Gamaliel quoted the Gospel of Matthew, then Matthew “had to be before 70 A.D.,” said Craig Blomberg, distinguished professor of New Testament at Denver Theological Seminary.”

This would still be compatible with a date for Mark of 65-70 CE with Matthew coming shortly afterward. Where are you getting the date of 50 CE from?

The Gamaliel parody throws this entire scenario into disarray. First, we known that Gamaliel wrote it. Second, Gamaliel died about twenty years before the destruction of Herod’s Temple. That puts his parody no later than 50 AD. That he parodied Matthew means that the Gospel of Matthew existed prior to this time.

Keep in mind that 50 AD is the latest possible date. It’s more likely that Gamaliel wrote the parody prior to 50 AD, which pushes the writing of the Gospel of Matthew back even further.

Most of the theories that put the writing of the Gospel of Mark first lean heavily on textual analysis and the Q hypothesis. Some people are surprised to learn that no one has found so much as a fragment of Q and that it exists only as a supposition. As to textual analysis . . . well, I have a dim view of it for the same reason I don’t think highly of the “Bible Code.” If that seems rough, then I’m sorry, but to date we’ve had no shred of hard evidence to support either the textual analysis or Q.

What we are left with is the order of the Gospels as recorded by early church historians. The Gamaliel parody lends it strong support. I think both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts were written prior to 64 AD because Acts ends before the Roman persecution. Church history says that the Gospel of John was written last, and we find what may be a hint in John 21:21-23: John was the only apostle to die of old age, and in these verses he appears to address a rumor that he wouldn’t die.

Which leaves us with the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. If Mark was written first, then the Gamaliel parody pushes back the writing of the first gospel even further. And while it wouldn’t upset my apple cart if we discovered Mark was written first, the *reasoning* that leads to that conclusion now is, well, slip-shod. Since the early histories recorded that Matthew came first, I think we need to rely on more than supposition.

And I’ll believe in “Q” when somebody turns up a copy of it. Documents that exist solely in theory have never impressed me very much.

[[The gospels came in decades later with the Gospel of Mark thought to be the earliest (c. 70’s CE).]]

That is disputed. By me, among other people. Here’s a list of some sources that propose much earlier dates for the gospels:

Albright, William Foxwell 1955. Recent Discoveries in Bible Lands. NY: Funk & Wagnalls.

Carmignac, Jean 1987. The Birth of the Synoptic Gospels. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press.

Duggan, George H. 1997. “The Dates of the Gospels.” Homiletic & Pastoral Review, May 1997.

Hemer, C. J. 1989. The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History. Tubingen: Mohr.

Reicke, Bo 1972. “Synoptic Prophecies on the Destruction of Jerusalem.” Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren, 1972., Ed. D. E. Aune, Leiden: Brill.

Robinson, John A. T. 1976. Redating the New Testament. London: SCM Press.

Thiede, Carsten P. and D’Ancona, Matthew 1996. Eyewitness to Jesus: Amazing New Manuscript Evidence about the Origin of the Gospels. NY: Doubleday.

Thiede, Carsten P. and D’Ancona, Matthew 1996. The Jesus Papyrus. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

Tresmontant, Claude 1989. The Hebrew Christ. Franciscan Press.

Tresmontant, Claude 1996. The Gospel of Matthew. Christendom Press.

Wenham, John W. 1991. Redating Matthew, Mark & Luke: A Fresh Assault on the Synoptic Problem. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

I’m told Orchard and Reilly’s “The Origin of the Synoptics” takes a similar view but I haven’t seen a copy.

Your list of sources about Socrates includes several that could not honestly be called “contemporary sources.”

As an example of document dating from this period we have a young Jewish woman named Babatha who lived during the 2nd century CE. She took part in the 2nd Jewish Revolt (i.e., the Bar Kochba revolt) and her letters have been found in her purse just the way she left them two thousand years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babatha

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/scrolls/babatha.html

A typical letter of hers runs as follows:

“In the reign of Imperator Caesar divi Traiani Parthici filius divi Nervae nepos Traianus Hadrianus Augustus pontifex maximus tribuniciae potestatis XII consul III, in the consulship of Marcus Gavius Gallicanus and Titus Atilius Rufus Titianus four days before the nones of December, and according to the computation of the new province of Arabia year twenty-two, month Apellaios the sixteenth, in the city of Rabbath-Moab. As a census of Arabia is being conducted by Titus Aninius Sextius Florentius, legatus Augusti pro praetore, I, Babatha daughter of Simon, of Maoza in the Zoarene district of the Petra administrative region, domiciled in my own private property in the said Moaza, register what I possess…” (i.e., this is a tax document)

Now several interesting points pop out here. The current year is given in 3 different forms:

1.) 12th year of the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (117 – 138 CE)
2.) Gallicanus and Titianus were consuls in Rome (127 CE)
3.) 22nd year of the founding of the province of Arabia (106 CE)

The current day is given in 2 different forms:
1.) four days before the nones of December (December 2nd)
2.) this is the 16th day of the month Apellaios (Macedonian calendar)

So this pins down the actual day the document was signed to:

Monday, December 2nd, 127 CE (Julian calendar)
Monday, December 1st, 127 CE (Gregorian calendar)

Or exactly 686,771 days ago. Why can’t Christian documents have this kind of precision? What is the earliest Christian document that has an exact date?

This flies in the face of established New Testament scholarship in which both the Gospels of Luke and the Gospels of Matthew borrow from the Gospel of Mark, but they also borrow from an unknown source which has been labeled Q.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Gospel

“The two-source hypothesis is the most widely accepted solution to the Synoptic Problem, which concerns the literary relationships between and among the first three canonical gospels (the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke), known as the Synoptic Gospels. Similarity in word choices and event placement shows an interrelationship. The synoptic problem concerns how this interrelation came to pass and what the nature of this interrelationship is. According to the two-source hypothesis, Matthew and Luke both used the Gospel of Mark, independently of one another. This necessitates the existence of a hypothetical source in order to explain the double tradition material where there is agreement between Matthew and Luke that is not in Mark. This hypothetical source is named Q for convenience.”

If this is at all accurate then the Gospel of Mark and Q must both predate the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew, although which came first, Mark or Q, is not clear.

“One of the first steps towards the solution was to note that Mark appeared earliest of the four canonical gospels.

Several lines of evidence suggest this. Mark is the shortest of the gospels– suggesting that the longer gospels took Mark as a source and added additional material to it, as opposed to Mark taking longer gospels but deleting substantial chunks of material. Mark’s use of diction and grammar is less sophisticated than that found in Matthew and Luke– suggesting that Matthew and Luke “cleaned up” Mark’s wording (as opposed to Mark intentionally “dumbing down” more sophisticated languages). Mark regularly included Aramaic quotes (translating them into Greek), whereas Matthew and Luke did not.”

This is covered in Wikipedia so I think we can assume fair use of the entire passage:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

“For he says in the treatises that he has written in the governance of the Jews: “At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus, and his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their loyalty to him. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive. Accordingly they believed that he was the Messiah, concerning whom the Prophets have recounted wonders”

Some facts are in order here:

This quotation comes from Agapius Mahbub Qustanin. Guess when he lived. The 10th century CE, that’s right almost 1,000 years after the events in question. There is such a thing as provenance in matters such as these. If someone approached you on the street and offered to sell you a previously unknown original painting by Rembrandt, you’d do well to find out the entire history of such a painting before delivering over any cash. You’d want to find out who owned the painting before you, and who owned it before him, etc., etc. all the way back to Rembrandt himself if possible. And if it turned out that the painting mysteriously surfaced in the year 1925 and before that no one had heard of it before, you’d be advised to keep your money in your pocket.

So I guess what I’m saying is 10 centuries is a bit of a stretch particularly since it has a passage which is completely different from the other existing manuscripts of Josephus’ works.

In the last few years there’s been the discovery of a parody of the Gospel of Matthew written by Gamaliel. This is significant because it shows that the Gospel of Matthew was written far earlier than some had assumed. It also bolsters what Church historians had originally wrote: that the Gospel of Mathew was written first, followed by Mark, then Luke, and finally John.

In some of these histories there’s a tendency to analyze things to pieces. I’ve no problem with Suetonius *thinking* Jesus Christ stirred up the Jews in Rome. But, as you say, he was writing around 120 AD.

The passage was discovered by Professor Schlomo Pines of Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1972 in an Arabic manuscript by the historian Agapius. The difference between the two is significant. The passage you quoted dates back at least to 325 AD, so the one in Agapius’ manuscript had to come from another textual line. Pines concluded that this was the original passage, an opinion shared by Paul L. Myers. Myers used it in his translation “Josephus: The Essential Writings.” I’m not sure if quoting the entire passage would violate Fair Use or not, and so I’ll stay on the side of caution.

Your assumption that Josephus would hold the same opinion of Jesus isn’t necessarily valid. Looking over the passage discovered by Pines (from Myer’s “Josephus: The Essential Writings,” page 264 – 265), there’s another significant difference: It does not contain the statement “when he was indicted by the principle men among us.” Instead, it simply has “Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die.”

Note also a difference between Jesus of Nazareth and the other two you cite: *the other two instigated acts of insurrection.* Josephus had just come out of the 1st Jewish revolt by the skin of his teeth and had a powerful Roman benefactor.

I’m convinced the passage discovered by Pine is authentic because, well, because “sounds” like Josephus to me.

A Christian source could be historical. Unfortunately in the case of Christian source documents the earliest ones appear to be the epistles of St. Paul dating from the 50′s to early 60′s CE which do not contain very much biographic data concerning Jesus. The gospels came in decades later with the Gospel of Mark thought to be the earliest (c. 70′s CE). Now ordinarily we would assume that the most accurate biographical information would be gleaned from the earliest documents. But this appears to be back-asswards in the case of Christianity. This is a point that Early Doherty makes in his book.

Concerning Suetonius:

http://www.truthbeknown.com/pliny.htm

“Moving through the standard list of defenses, we come to the Roman historian Suetonius. The passage in Suetonius’s Life of Claudius, dating to around 110 CE, states that the emperor Claudius “drove the Jews out of Rome, who at the suggestion of Chrestus were constantly rioting.” The passage in Latin is as follows:

Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.

Once more, we see that the reference is to “Chresto,” not “Christo.” In any case, Claudius reigned from 41-54, while Christ was purported to have been crucified around 30, so the great Jewish sage could not have been in Rome personally at that time.”

Also, the Gospels provide no support for Jesus communicating with followers in Rome. Indeed, the entire New Testament corpus cannot explain how the community of Christians in Rome got established. St. Paul did not found the Church in Rome.

Concerning Tacitus, same web site:
“Based on these and other facts, several scholars have argued that, even if the Annals themselves were genuine, the passage regarding Jesus was spurious. One of these authorities was Rev. Taylor, who suspected the passage to be a forgery because it too is not quoted by any of the Christian fathers, including Tertullian, who read and quoted Tacitus extensively. Nor did Clement of Alexandria notice this passage in any of Tacitus’s works, even though one of this Church father’s main missions was to scour the works of Pagan writers in order to find validity for Christianity. As noted, the Church historian Eusebius, who likely forged the Testimonium Flavianum, does not relate this Tacitus passage in his abundant writings. Indeed, no mention is made of this passage in any known text prior to the 15th century.”

Dio Cassius was writing in the early 3rd century CE which is much too late to shed much light on the historicity of Jesus.

A Christian source could be historical. Unfortunately in the case of Christian source documents the earliest ones appear to be the epistles of St. Paul dating from the 50′s to early 60′s CE which do not contain very much biographic data concerning Jesus. The gospels came in decades later with the Gospel of Mark thought to be the earliest (c. 70′s CE). Now ordinarily we would assume that the most accurate biographical information would be gleaned from the earliest documents. But this appears to be back-asswards in the case of Christianity. This is a point that Early Doherty makes in his book.

Concerning Suetonius:

http://www.truthbeknown.com/pliny.htm

“Moving through the standard list of defenses, we come to the Roman historian Suetonius. The passage in Suetonius’s Life of Claudius, dating to around 110 CE, states that the emperor Claudius “drove the Jews out of Rome, who at the suggestion of Chrestus were constantly rioting.” The passage in Latin is as follows:

Claudius Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.

Once more, we see that the reference is to “Chresto,” not “Christo.” In any case, Claudius reigned from 41-54, while Christ was purported to have been crucified around 30, so the great Jewish sage could not have been in Rome personally at that time.”

Also, the Gospels provide no support for Jesus communicating with followers in Rome. Indeed, the entire New Testament corpus cannot explain how the community of Christians in Rome got established. St. Paul did not found the Church in Rome.

Concerning Tacitus, same web site:
“Based on these and other facts, several scholars have argued that, even if the Annals themselves were genuine, the passage regarding Jesus was spurious. One of these authorities was Rev. Taylor, who suspected the passage to be a forgery because it too is not quoted by any of the Christian fathers, including Tertullian, who read and quoted Tacitus extensively. Nor did Clement of Alexandria notice this passage in any of Tacitus’s works, even though one of this Church father’s main missions was to scour the works of Pagan writers in order to find validity for Christianity. As noted, the Church historian Eusebius, who likely forged the Testimonium Flavianum, does not relate this Tacitus passage in his abundant writings. Indeed, no mention is made of this passage in any known text prior to the 15th century.”

Dio Cassius was writing in the early 3rd century CE which is much too late to shed much light on the historicity of Jesus.

Ditto Thallus:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html#thallus
“Since we don’t possess any extant copies of the Thallus material, there is simply no way to know if Thallus was a witness to Jesus. Likewise, we don’t know what Thallus’s sources were.”

Ditto Mara Bar-Serapion:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html#mara
“Mara Bar-Serapion is worthless as a witness to the historicity of Jesus…”

Concerning Socrates we have the following sources concerning his life, teachings, and particularly his trial:

1.) The Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, 225 CE
2.) The Apology of Plato
3.) The Apology of Xenophon
4.) The Clouds by Aritophanes, 423 BCE

Considering the trial itself we know quite a bit about it:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html
Out of a panel of 500 jurors, 280 found him guilty and 220 voted for acquittal. During the punishment phase 360 jurors voted for death and 140 jurors voted for a fine. The details concerning the trial are much more detailed than for the trial of Jesus even though it took place four centuries earlier.

[[The only contemporary account by a non-Christian source mentioning Jesus is Josephus’ “Antiquities of the Jews” Chapter 8 3.3:]]

Why are Christian sources automatically suspect, Tom? Why can’t a Christian source be historical?

But even given that, you’re missing the mentions of Jesus in Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius, Thallus, and the letter of Mara bar-Serapion.

Note, for contrast, that we know of the existence of Socrates from exactly two sources — one by his student, Plato, and the other a comic play by Aristophanes. Now, using your logic that someone linked to Socrates must be untrustworthy, that leaves the portrait in The Clouds. So I take it you don’t believe Socrates was a real person?

Ohhhhh, why did I just say that!? I can already hear the footsteps of BPL…

That’s awfully complementary for Josephus to say that Jesus may have been the Messiah. Here is what he has to say about other Messianic claimants:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theudas
“It came to pass, while Cuspius Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain charlatan, whose name was Theudas, persuaded a great part of the people to take their effects with them, and follow him to the Jordan river; for he told them he was a prophet, and that he would, by his own command, divide the river, and afford them an easy passage over it. Many were deluded by his words. However, Fadus did not permit them to make any advantage of his wild attempt, but sent a troop of horsemen out against them. After falling upon them unexpectedly, they slew many of them, and took many of them alive. They also took Theudas alive, cut off his head, and carried it to Jerusalem.” (Jewish Antiquities 20.97-98)

http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah/messianic_claimants09.html
“There was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives. He was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to rule them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him.”
[Flavius Josephus, Jewish War 2.261-262]

So according to Josephus, Theudas is a “charlatan” and the Egyptian is a “false prophet”. It’s pretty clear this was his viewpoint on all Messianic claimants. So if we find passages in Josephus saying that Jesus is the Messiah, or may have been the Messiah, or may not have been just a man, etc., etc. this is pretty good evidence of a later Christian interpolation being inserted into the text.

As one of Phil’s brothers, I prefer the title of his new asteriod blog.