From jsiegel@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu Sun Apr 8 09:49:54 2001 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.03) with ESMTP id f38GnqK53980 for ; Sun, 8 Apr 2001 09:49:53 -0700 Received: from drjclassics.com (server62.aitcom.net [208.234.0.14]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.03) with ESMTP id f38Gnqb28133 for ; Sun, 8 Apr 2001 09:49:52 -0700 Received: from f6s5f3 (adsl-141-158-2-97.phila.adsl.bellatlantic.net [141.158.2.97]) by drjclassics.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id MAA11944 for ; Sun, 8 Apr 2001 12:49:50 -0400 Message-ID: <067a01c0c04b$f336a9e0$4dbcfea9@f6s5f3> From: "Janice Siegel" To: Subject: the Jesus/Caesar connection Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001 12:49:59 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Do a google search for Caesar-Tacitus-Jesus (throw in Germania to limit it further) and you will find a whole slew of sites dedicated to proving that the gospels are as valuable as historical documents as Caesar's Gallic Wars and Tacitus' Germania are. And that they should be regarded as historical documents for the same reason that no one would ever question the validity of Herodotus or Thucydides. The search will also reveal pages comparing Jesus and Arminius (same time, same age, different paths). It's really worth a few minutes to see what is out there. I came across these by accident while researching Romans in Germany. This one argues both ends against the middle that the gospels are in fact *more* reliable historical documents than Caesar's history or Tacitus' Germania: (snipped from the middle of http://www.jacobchristman.homestead.com/ThePull.html): "These facts prove that the "New Testament" of the Bible is more reliable than "The Conquest of Gaul" or "Germania" using the exact same standards for evaluating the credibility of ancient historical documents. Therefore, if the writings of Caesar and Tacitus are valid, then the contents of Gospels are at least as valid. Consequently, the contents of the Gospels should be considered to be true even by secular standards. In addition, the "Old Testament" of the Bible is also more reliable than the writings of Caesar and Tacitus, and the Old Testament is corroborated by the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are documents that were found in a cave in 1947 and not the copies of anything." Now *there's* a circular argument! Enjoy. Cheers, Janice Janice Siegel Intellectual Heritage Temple University http://courses.temple.edu/ih http://www.drjclassics.com .