Posted: Jan 31, 2012 1:43 pm
Blood wrote:GakuseiDon wrote:
Yes, and have a look at the titles. Which of his books should have mentioned Jesus? "On Mating"? "On Dreams"? "On the life of Moses"? "On Drunkenness"?
If he had written a book called "On Messiah claimants", then we might expect Philo to have mentioned Jesus. But he didn't. So tell me which of those 30 manuscripts should we expect Philo to have mentioned Jesus? Perhaps give a list of the top three candidates.
Yes, that's an excellent point. We would only have reason to expect Philo to have mentioned Yeshua ben Yosef the Nazarene if he had actually written a book specific to the topic of current prophets and sages. If such a book existed, and talked about all sorts of recent prophets from Galilee or Judah, but didn't mention Jesus -- only then would the silence of Philo be a strong argument.
One thing I'm curious about - allegedly christians were persecuted by jews in the 1st century (Paul is supposed to have been a hunter of christians according to some scholars).
Even if Jesus was too obscure to get a mention, would not a region-wide man hunt such as portrayed be worthy of mention? Both Josephus and Philo are said to be connected to the establishment - would we expect them to comment on a heresy worthy of such drastic and far reaching action authorized by their class?
ETA: This alleged 'persecution' of which Paul is supposed to have been a part of may be another one of those 'Goldilocks' dilemmas - just as Jesus was obscure enough to escape notice by any trustworthy chronicle yet so famous the embarrassing circumstances of his family and career were known far and wide throughout the Roman Empire, the christian cult was just big enough to warrant the region-wide hunt for and killing of untold numbers of christians yet likewise this blood-letting was so unremarkable it left no credible evidence behind.
