Screaming Silences, Screaming Memes: The "Silence" of Ancient Historians
A persistent meme among skeptics is that there are numerous ancient writers and historians who fail to mention Jesus and this is evidence that Jesus did not exist. The source for this particular meme appears to be John Remsburg, a teacher and member of the Kansas State Horticultural Society. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Remsburg published a book, The Christ . The book itself is little remembered, but a list of ancient writers contained within it has reached a limited level of infamy on the internet. Now known as "Remsburg's List" and sometimes sensationalized as "A Silence that Screams," the list is used to supposedly show how many ancient writers did not mention Jesus and therefore suggest or prove that Jesus did not exist or was nothing like the Gospels' portrayal. J.P. Holding has done a comprehensive take down of this list, leaving little direct work to be done. As he concludes: In almost all cases, Remsberg's writers are either ...