When Jesus was alive, he was just a slightly more notable than average fish in a small pond. He just started getting noticed many decades after his death.
Thus 85 years after the death of Jesus only 2 independent historians (outside the Xtian cult) considered him worth mentioning. Not only not famous in the ancient Roman world, but barely a blip on the radar to contemporary reporters.
Paul Cole was an American tourist visiting London with his wife. While she was inside a museum, he stepped outside to have a cigarette. He wasn’t paying much attention to the four young men who were walking across the street down the block and having their picture taken. A year later, he saw the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album and realized he was on it.
I think a very similar story to that of the young Afghan girl is the story of Birhan Woldu, the young Ethiopian girl who was the “face” of famine in Ethiopia. She was prominently featured in Live Aid video after she had been photographed by the team with Brian Stewart, a Canadian journalist with CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). For an overview of the story, and a picture from Birhan from that time see here from the CBC website.
It’s rather an interesting story. Since the pictures were taken in 1984, Brian Stewart quietly stayed in contact with the Woldu family. Until this past year, on the twentieth anniversary of the famine, there was no public element to that contact. However, Ms. Woldu was pulled into the spotlight on the twentieth anniversary. I saw a documentary about her on CBC where she spoke with Brian Stewart. She is now very well aware of the fame that became attached to her image. She struck me as quite a remarkable young woman.
Some extant versions seem interpolated. However, the Shlomo Pines’ translation, quoted by J. D. Crossan just just states Jesus was crucified by Pilate, and claimed he rose from the dead. All this indicated was some folks thought Jesus was the Messiah, and did perform miracles. Josephus never claims this was certainly true. A later Xtian editor wouldn’t alter the text with something that indicated some just thought Jesus rose from the dead.
Oddly enough, Larry Charles spoke about this in one of the MAS*H, or perhaps in the biography of the show on A&E. He said he went and caught up with all the ladies who portrayed nurses running toward the camera in the opening credits.
Some went on to other acting, but most were married and had children. The ladies looked at it as a point of pride that their image was used on TV for so many years.
That’s odd; around the time they started using the shot of the motorcycle sliding into the wall, I remember they went to the guy’s home town and he was bemused that they were still using it.
Nuts! I wanted to be the first to mention Lindbergh.
This of course doesn’t count as real fame, but - a few years ago, I was waiting for the Lexington line 6 train at the 77th Street stop. As the train pulled into the station, I noticed that there was a glaring, blinding light coming from the front window of the train. “What the hell was THAT?” I thought momentarily, but quickly forgot about it. A few days later, NY1 (the local news in NYC channel) did a story about congestion on the subway lines and - THERE’S A SHOT OF ME WAITING FOR THE TRAIN! OMG! But dammit all, nobody is ever around but me whenever I see it. I never get the joy of pointing to it and saying “That’s me!”
Forgive me for being out of the loop, but…who is the ‘Star Wars kid’?
