Lucian

Lucian of Samosata, generally just Lucian, (ca. 125 – after 180 CE) was a rhetorician and satirist with 70 known surviving works. He is best known for his dialogues ridiculing Greek mythology and philosophy.
==Writings==
Lucian's most famous work is , a satire against tall tales, containing space travel, aliens, and interplanetary war. It's regarded by many as the first known work of science fiction. Another fun work he wrote is , a dialogue making fun of belief in the supernatural. It starts out with a skeptic named Tychiades who gets in an argument with some friends about alternative medicine and then they start telling him bat-crazy stories involving statues that come to life, haunted houses, and a whole host of other nonsense, culminating with the famous story of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." He also wrote a bunch of work making fun of traditional Greek religious beliefs including Dialogues of the Gods, Zeus the Opera Star (no, really), and The Parliament of the Gods.
==Use in Christian apologism==
Several apologists, looking for evidence for the existence of Jesus, have cited the following statement by Lucian (ca. 170 CE), recounting the words of a speaker in a town square after a man named Proteus had thrown himself into a fire:http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/lucian/peregrinus.htm
Lucian, while a satirist, separated fiction from fact.Grant 1995, p. 27. Lucian also attempted to act as an unbiased,Grant 1995, p. 70. serious, and accurate historian.Grant 1995, pp. 81,94. While his depiction of the incident may be humorous, it was likely not fictional.
There are several issues with taking this as evidence of a historical Jesus.http://infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html#lucian
*Time: Lucian's statement was written near 170 CE (about 140 years after the crucifixion), and Lucian himself was born in 125 CE (about 95 years after the crucifixion). It seems rather unlikely that Lucian was an eyewitness.
*Sources: Lucian never specified his sources on Jesus. Given that Christianity had been going on for over 100 years, it's easy to believe that Lucian used Christian sources, common knowledge, or even an earlier pagan reference (such as Tacitus). Yet Lucian can only count as evidence of Jesus' existence if he used independent and reliable sources; neither is known.
*:Some have responded that Lucian disdained Christians, which makes it unlikely that he'd have used them for information.Holding 2000 There are numerous issues: First, just because you think a religion is stupid doesn't mean you necessarily question the believers on the origins of their religion -- namely, where the "Christ" of "Christian" comes from (ie, even if you think Mormonism is stupid, you likely wouldn't question Mormons on the origins of the word "Mormon"). Second, there's no evidence that Christianity was significant at the time, making it unlikely that Lucian would have either cared enough to investigate or that other writers would have extensively investigated the issue.
*Lack of skepticism: Just as with Tacitus, it is plausible that Lucian would have accepted Christian claims that their founder had been crucified, etc. Further, there is no evidence that Lucian doubted the historicity of Jesus or investigated it. His concern for accuracy is irrelevant if he had no reason to believe that his statements were inaccurate.
==See also==
*Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ
*Josephus
*Tacitus
*Pliny the Younger
*Suetonius
*Thallus
*Phlegon
*Hadrian
*Serapion
==External links==
*
*Works of Lucian on Wikisource
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Authors
Category:Jesus
Category:Romans