angelo wrote:one has to wonder if the driving force behind HJ scholarship is more an a priori disbelief in orthodoxy than a historian's genuine interest in what really happened

Well, Angelo, at least you've progressed a tiny bit. Not long ago, you wouldn't have been caught dead conceding that HJ scholarship is really a pushback against Christian orthodoxy. So this is a marginal improvement. Hope you don't get into trouble with your myther brethren!

Of course, you're still parroting most of what is at bottom a paranoid conspiratorial line of tin-foil plated bullshit, but apparently, you do occasionally read something of what others here have learned after all.

Who woulda thunk it?

By the way, I happily apologize for having jumped to conclusions on the Jirek matter. It was clearly overhasty on my part and I'm sincerely sorry. I hope you will accept my apology.

Stein

Now we can get back to serious backstabbing!

proudfootz wrote:
Perhaps someone - maybe it was even Origen - saw a man named James mentioned in the text, and wrote in the margin "ton adelphon Iesou tou legomenou Christou" ('the brother of Jesus, the one called Christ') as his own note-to-self about who he thought Josephus referred to...

It was NOT necessary for anyone one to have interpolated the passage because in Greek the word Cristos is not normally translated in English as Messiah or Messianic ruler.

The Greek version of the Hebrew Bible contains the word Cristos about 40 times and ONLY once is it translated to Messiah.

The passage in Antiquities 20.9.1 could be exactly as it is found and a Greek reader would NOT claim Jesus was a Messianic ruler but was ANOINTED as a High Priest.

Jesus was called CRISTOS can be translated two ways.

1. Jesus was called the Christ.

2. Jesus was called the Anointed.

In Josephus, Vespasian was the Messiah, NOT Jesus the brother of James.

Wars of the Jews

But now, what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how," about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth." The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea.

Jesus the brother of James was the Anointed High Priest in Josephus.

archibald wrote: It makes no sense to introduce Jesus son of Damneus the first time as just 'a Jesus' but use 'son of Damneus' second time around, especially if he wasn't high priest at the time of the first incident.

So whose son was James?? Whose son was Jesus called Cristos???

Based on Josephus they were brothers.

Based on the Church, Jesus Christ had NO human brother called the Apostle James.
Based on the Church, Jesus Christ had NO human father.

The matter can be resolved if HJers can tell us the father of James and Jesus in Josephus.

It is clear that HJers have NOTHING AT ALL for their HJ of Nazareth.

Evan Allen wrote:To clarify, it strikes me that the text that we have of Josephus has been fiddled with. The TF is provably fiddled with so anyone who argues that any of the rest of the text couldn't have been fiddled with is just deluding themselves in my opinion. Now, the TF was fiddled with to give a greater historical background outside of confessional documents to establish the firm footing of the faith for those who wanted to prove the apostolic succession, which was a very big deal in the 3rd and 4th centuries resulting in the donatist heresy of the 4th and 5th centuries. It strikes me as naive and credulous to base any firm historical conclusion about anything on Josephus alone, since the excavations at Masada have proven that he is an inaccurate historian who chooses a good story over the facts. But it is especially naive and credulous to base a conclusion about Jesus on Josephus since we can be certain there was Christian tampering with the document.

So without Josephus, there is no reference to Jesus in any non-confessional document of the first two centuries.

Erhman says as much after examining the extra-biblical sources for a HJ. He also reaches a conclusion that the gospels are all we have to establish the HJ. Only difference been he still believes in a HJ. But seen his background one is not surprised at his conclusions.

Stein wrote:

angelo wrote:one has to wonder if the driving force behind HJ scholarship is more an a priori disbelief in orthodoxy than a historian's genuine interest in what really happened

Well, Angelo, at least you've progressed a tiny bit. Not long ago, you wouldn't have been caught dead conceding that HJ scholarship is really a pushback against Christian orthodoxy. So this is a marginal improvement. Hope you don't get into trouble with your myther brethren!

Of course, you're still parroting most of what is at bottom a paranoid conspiratorial line of tin-foil plated bullshit, but apparently, you do occasionally read something of what others here have learned after all.

Who woulda thunk it?

By the way, I happily apologize for having jumped to conclusions on the Jirek matter. It was clearly overhasty on my part and I'm sincerely sorry. I hope you will accept my apology.

Stein

Apology accepted. I will say this, The Christ myth theory is in general not supported by the academia because they have already decided to look for the historical Jesus, and believe that comparative mythology cannot shed light onto the object of their investigations. Those few historians and academics that are interested in researching the mythical Christ hope to present an argument strong enough to withstand the foregone presumption of critics like Carrier that the theory is outdated or has already been adequately disproved. Here is what is regarded here as a fringe historian on the matter. The most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed......when one examines this issue closely, one will find a tremendous volume of literature that demonstrates, logically and intelligently, time and again that Jesus Christ is a mythological character along the same lines as the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian, Phonetician, Indian or other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths rather than historical figure . end quote. Acharya S Meanwhile biblical scholars/historians focus exclusively on Christology and theory, and the very real difficulty in putting the two together is ignored.

Byron wrote:

logical bob wrote:While we're talking about bias, I was quite clear that I wasn't criticising just HJ but all attempts to draw definite conclusions about Christian origins from the New Testament. Of course testing is supposed to eliminate bias. The better the source material is the more its possible to test. In New Testament studies people with equal qualifications draw completely opposite conclusions and claim the other sides are failing the testing process. This does not instill confidence in the rigour of the testing.

Historians disagree: yep, situation normal! Did the Roman empire fall, or transform; was the reformation top-down, or base-up; was the American revolution driven by religion, or natural rights theory; the time the jury's spent out on these questions makes the Ruby Ridge verdict look speedy by comparison.

Delayed response - not sure if you're still following this as it has gone off the boil somewhat.

Anyway, the thing is, people with a higher threshold of scepticism say, look, there are hardly any sources to go on and people with impeccable credentials and careers to spend on this disagree completely. To which the response seems to be yes, but it's OK because this is normal in ancient history. Am I alone in thinking this is rather conceding the point?

As for the decline and fall, or the role of natural rights, or whatever, Cito's already quoted in this thread the Rorty paper we've discussed approvingly in other threads. It's good to tell stories about the way we got to where we are, but all such stories can be made to look like special pleading when you factor in what their authors factored out. It doesn't do them any favours to expect them to be true.

logical bob wrote:Anyway, the thing is, people with a higher threshold of scepticism say, look, there are hardly any sources to go on and people with impeccable credentials and careers to spend on this disagree completely. To which the response seems to be yes, but it's OK because this is normal in ancient history. Am I alone in thinking this is rather conceding the point?

Depends what you think the point is.

Or alternatively, what you think the question(s) should be.

Whatever the questions, I'd like to see them addressed by a wider range of historians than is currently the case, even if we ultimately have to then move on to ask whether even a range of more independent experts can actually say anything much either, because of the inherent murkiness of ancient history vis-a-vis minor characters.

At the moment, it's a bit like trying to study Capitalism when nearly all the books are written by Socialists.

angelo wrote:... I will say this, The Christ myth theory is in general not supported by the academia because they have already decided to look for the historical Jesus, and believe that comparative mythology cannot shed light onto the object of their investigations....

People are SEARCHING for an histoical Jesus of Nazareth because a Mythological Jesus, the Jesus of Faith, is in the NT. It is a Consensus among Scholars that NT Jesus cannot be accepted as described.

Whether HJers accept any Myth theory is IRRELEVANT since the Quest for the Historical Jesus is an admittance that NT Jesus cannot be accepted as historical in its present form.

NT Jesus as described is a MYTH hence HJers are NOT willing to accept the NT Jesus and have began a SEARCH hoping to find an UNKNOWN historical Jesus of Nazareth.

It is virtually IMPOSSIBLE to locate an UNKNOWN character.

Everyone knows where to find Myth Jesus of Nazareth.

Mythological Jesus is in the NT.

After 250 years, HJers have discovered that HJ is the Lord Jesus Christ of Galatians.

The Lord Jesus Christ of Galatians in the NT Canon was FATHERED by a Ghost, God's own Son, the Word, Creator of heaven and earth.

MS2 wrote:

logical bob wrote:Anyway, the thing is, people with a higher threshold of scepticism say, look, there are hardly any sources to go on and people with impeccable credentials and careers to spend on this disagree completely. To which the response seems to be yes, but it's OK because this is normal in ancient history. Am I alone in thinking this is rather conceding the point?

Depends what you think the point is.

Or alternatively, what you think the question(s) should be.

How can we make Jesus relevant to today's audience? There's a target audience that simply is no longer entertained by treating Jesus as a literal instrument of God's literal grace, but continues to be interested in the roots of religious traditions. It's not really a very large audience, relatively speaking. There's an even smaller audience which chooses to make its last stand epistemologically on the point of whether or not we can discover absolute truths about ancient human history, or that the likely truths of ancient history are relevant to anyone but academic historians. Did I leave out anything that you particularly think should be the questions? Do you think there are some necessary questions? That would be fairly Platonic of you.

Evan Allen wrote:

proudfootz wrote:Another 'reconstruction' of the possible original phrase is this:

"Ananus, therefore . . . called together the Sanhedrin and brought before them one whose name was James, together with some others, and accused them of violating the law and condemned them to be stoned. But those in the city who seemed most moderate and skilled in the law were very angry at this, and sent secretly to the king, requesting him to order Ananus to cease such proceedings. . . ."

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10 ... usidentify

Apparently the Greek words relating directly to this James are Iakobos onoma autoi which Crossan interprets as “a man named James.” Which makes sense - this isn't a story about James, much less any relatives of James. James is incidental to the story of how Ananus came to be deposed.

Perhaps someone - maybe it was even Origen - saw a man named James mentioned in the text, and wrote in the margin "ton adelphon Iesou tou legomenou Christou" ('the brother of Jesus, the one called Christ') as his own note-to-self about who he thought Josephus referred to.

At some point a copyist finding this marginal note could easily incorporate the offending christian phrase into Josephus without realizing it didn't belong there. Naturally, a christian copyist awkwardly puts the Jesus reference first which gives the game away...

No 'conspiracy' necessary - despite the insistence of CTs.

Well it still seems like the proposed text is still a bit anomalous for Josephus, since then James is unintroduced and not given the "a certain" phrase that seems to introduce such types for him as Spin has shown.

Wouldn't it be even more 'anomalous for Josephus to introduce a term like 'christ' without explaining what its significance was?

After all, we are constantly reminded that no one took any notice of Jesus the anonymous street preacher who died in obscurity, so it makes no sense to 'identify' the famous James by reference to his less-connected bother some 30 years dead.

And we can confidently conclude the whole TF is a fake, so there is no 'prior discussion' being cited. Otherise we'd expect Josephus to say something like "the madman Jesus who was crucified" or whatever to orient the reader to the supposed earlier mention.

The best explanation for its presence in this passage is that some christian put it there - and putting 'Jesus called christ' before James is exactly what we'd expect from a christian even though the anecdote has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus.

IMO the James referred to here was original to Josephus, but he is not 'James the Just' or 'James Brother of the Lord' as Origen mistakenly believed. This James is a person about whom Josephus seems to know very little - he is incidental to a story about Ananus and christian apologists like Origen (and later still 'historical Jesus' freaks) have glommed onto the name James as 'proof' for their ideas about a 1st century Jesus they believe is the origin of christianity.

Evan Allen wrote:To clarify, it strikes me that the text that we have of Josephus has been fiddled with. The TF is provably fiddled with so anyone who argues that any of the rest of the text couldn't have been fiddled with is just deluding themselves in my opinion.

Now, the TF was fiddled with to give a greater historical background outside of confessional documents to establish the firm footing of the faith for those who wanted to prove the apostolic succession, which was a very big deal in the 3rd and 4th centuries resulting in the donatist heresy of the 4th and 5th centuries.

It strikes me as naive and credulous to base any firm historical conclusion about anything on Josephus alone, since the excavations at Masada have proven that he is an inaccurate historian who chooses a good story over the facts. But it is especially naive and credulous to base a conclusion about Jesus on Josephus since we can be certain there was Christian tampering with the document.

So without Josephus, there is no reference to Jesus in any non-confessional document of the first two centuries.

Exactly right - the tampering with Josephus was done because the christians realized no sensible person would take their scribblings seriously.

So they modified Josephus accordingly, and it still fools the unwary.

The devotion of bible 'historians' to salvaging something from the TF is evidence of how determined they are to try and convince themselves and others there really was a Jesus after all...

proudfootz wrote:
"Ananus, therefore . . . called together the Sanhedrin and brought before them one whose name was James, together with some others, and accused them of violating the law and condemned them to be stoned. But those in the city who seemed most moderate and skilled in the law were very angry at this, and sent secretly to the king, requesting him to order Ananus to cease such proceedings. . . ."

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10 ... usidentify.

Quick question, and one which Evan might also ask.....

Did Josephus often mention people in this way, if he hadn't already introduced them? Even incidental characters, I mean.

dejuror wrote:
People are SEARCHING for an histoical Jesus of Nazareth because a Mythological Jesus, the Jesus of Faith, is in the NT. It is a Consensus among Scholars that NT Jesus cannot be accepted as described.

Whether HJers accept any Myth theory is IRRELEVANT since the Quest for the Historical Jesus is an admittance that NT Jesus cannot be accepted as historical in its present form.

That's a very succinct summary of what's really driving the Quest III. The NT presents a mythological god-character that was perfectly in tune with ancient ideas but is unacceptable to the modern Western mind. This is quite a dilemma for the Christians and the scholarly consensus. How do you make the "Christ of faith" one with the "Jesus of History"? You read the gospels as they were never intended to be read: as "historical" documents with layers of legend and myth added on over time, instead of narrative theology that actually started with the legend and myth and only added the "historical" allusions later.

archibald wrote:

proudfootz wrote:
"Ananus, therefore . . . called together the Sanhedrin and brought before them one whose name was James, together with some others, and accused them of violating the law and condemned them to be stoned. But those in the city who seemed most moderate and skilled in the law were very angry at this, and sent secretly to the king, requesting him to order Ananus to cease such proceedings. . . ."

http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10 ... usidentify.

Quick question, and one which Evan might also ask.....

Did Josephus often mention people in this way, if he hadn't already introduced them? Even incidental characters, I mean.

I don't know.

Supposing that the phrase 'the brother of Jesus called Christ' is an interpolation, then perhaps the mention of James was slightly 'harmonized' to the new reading. And like the blatant forgery in the Testimonium this is the manuscript line that survived.

Or perhaps not every introduction needs be 'always' done a certain way, or even 'often' done that way, to be the work of Josephus.

It certainly seems the passage as it stands in anomalous.

proudfootz wrote:

I don't know.

Nor do I . I guess we'll have to wait for Spin. All I know is if you google 'Josephus one whose name was', you get quite a few hits, but it would take quite a bit of reading to locate them in the texts which come up when you click on the links.

proudfootz wrote:It certainly seems the passage as it stands in anomalous.

I must admit it does look a bit odd. But then, I don't know enough about Josephus to be able to assess whether it's a complete anomaly, or rare, or what (I mean as it stands). Equally, when I'm looking at the TF, I lack the knowledge to, say, ascertain whether Josephus digresses in that manner, even though I know the lack of continuity is cited as a possible indicator for possible interpolation.

archibald wrote:Whatever the questions, I'd like to see them addressed by a wider range of historians than is currently the case

That seems the wrong way round to me. Historians ask their own particular questions in their own particular ways. Either some of them happen to have addressed what you are interested in or they haven't.

because of the inherent murkiness of ancient history vis-a-vis minor characters.

It does seem to be pretty murky, I agree. Our differences seem to come down to a view about how sure we need to be. I'm happy to try and figure out what that shape looming up out of the dark might be, whereas others seem to prefer to look at it and make no judgement.

MS2 wrote:
That seems the wrong way round to me. Historians ask their own particular questions in their own particular ways. Either some of them happen to have addressed what you are interested in or they haven't.

Possibly, but whatever the reasons, we seem to have a situation where nearly all the books on the economics of capitalism have been written by socialists, in my analogy.

MS2 wrote:
It does seem to be pretty murky, I agree. Our differences seem to come down to a view about how sure we need to be. I'm happy to try and figure out what that shape looming up out of the dark might be, whereas others seem to prefer to look at it and make no judgement.

Sure. Actually, I think the question is in some ways, where/how does NT scholarship sit with historiographical methodology generally? It seems to me that so far, we mostly have NT scholars and the like telling us it sits very well.

Cito di Pense wrote:Did I leave out anything that you particularly think should be the questions? Do you think there are some necessary questions? That would be fairly Platonic of you.

I think the questions you ask depend on who you are, so no I don't think there are any absolutely 'necessary' questions. I think a Christian might want (or at least would be wise) to ask whether the character he/she believes in is at all like the character that actually existed (and indeed whether such a character actually is likely to have existed at all). If, like me, you are simply interested in how the Christian religion got going, there are a whole load of questions, only a few of which involve the historical Jesus.