Archaeologica.org

My wife received an Email from the uniting church a little while ago that stated they had "Evidence Outside the Bible for His Existence."
It was in the form of a small pamphlet that you could order for free. So I did
http://www.ucg.org.au/?offer/jesus-chri ... real-story

In the enquiry section this is what I wrote;
“As long as the "historian" JOSEPHUS is not used, he has been proven (beyond doubt) to be fraudulent, it would be interesting to see any evidence of his actual existence.
And not Nazareth... it didn’t exist until at least 200-300 CE. This has been 100% historically proven. Something the early gospel writers, who had no geographical idea of the region they were writing about, did not know.
Thank you.”

Their proofs are pathetic. This is the link to the pdf of the booklet;
http://www.ucg.org.au/assets/pdfs/booklets/jc.pdf

Of course they use Josephus as their main historical source, but you should read page six and what they have to say about a stone slab that was found. You will laugh. I won't give it away but by their definition any book or movie, wether fact or fiction, with a real place or name in it must be 100% true.

It has been three weeks since I sent the request. Do you think that I might have offended them?

Sorry if this is the wrong place to post this but it didnt quite seem to fit into the category of mythology and archaeology.

Uh, no. "Everything Else" should cover it nicely.

Who was Jesus? Few will dispute that a man named Jesus
lived 2,000 years ago and that He was a great teacher who
impacted the world from His time forward.

Needless to say they lost me in their first paragraph!

Let me look through it.

Good grief....

That Jesus died and was buried is one of the best-established facts about Jesus. The Bible says again and again that Jesus died.

Yep. That proves it. Gone With The Wind says that Scarlett O'hara married Rhett Butler so I guess that happened, too.


Later on I noted that they trotted out the whole Pliny/Suetonius/Tacitus/Josephus crap all over again. One can only guess that their followers are easily fooled.

One of the most convincing arguments (heavy sarcasm) they could come up with concerning archaeology was the stone slab that was found in Israel;

TC wrote:In 1961 an Italian expedition excavating Caesarea Maritima in Israel found this stone slab bearing the name of Pontius Pilate, the Roman administrator who condemned Jesus Christ to death, and his title, “prefect of Judea.” This inscription is one of many historical proofs verifying the existence of individuals mentioned in the New Testament.

This is when you know that they are desperately clutching at straws.

I don't know why they are so impressed with that find...which only proves that the Tacitus reference where he calls Pilate a "procurator" is incorrect.

Both Philo and Josephus wrote about Pilate. It is not as if there was a gap in the historical record.

Like I said, they are easily impressed.

I don't think Scarlett married Rhett. He told her to get lost, didn't he? "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" Of course all that jesus crap's a lotta hooey. They believe what they want to believe. It's called faith. I call it gullibility.

Yeah, Scarlett and Rhett got married and had a kid who was killed in a horse-riding accident.

Guess you didn't watch the whole movie!

I only remember the end. Guess I was glad the damn thing was over finally. It's only been about thirty years since I watched it.