A lot of people question Josephus - he stated a lot of things that people would have a hard time swallowing (Vespasian was the messiah, a cow gave birth to a goat, etc).
Plus, he’s just relaying an account about what Christians believed, an account that doesn’t tell us much AND has been heavily tampered with.
From here:
From here:
In other words, we have to sort through the information Josephus provides, we should be skeptical of it - as we should we most other ancient historians. Even the best of them are no match for modern historians.
Meatros, this was a culture that stoned women to death for adultery… Can you please stop the nonsense of making the Jewish people of the Roman period seem progressive. They had more in common with fundamentalist Islam which still exists today, then any modernity sense of women and their place in the world.
I mean just go through biblical accounts of Jesus dealing with women… even the Apostles get disgusted with it. They frequently call him out or try to keep women away from him all together.
Please provide any evidence to this progressive culture you are referring to existing in that period of time within Jerusalem.
also
I’m familiar with Justin Martyr, read the works… not sure why he’s considered dubious in terms of a historical Jesus debate. Again time period and time frame… if someone told you their Grandpa served in World War I would you believe them? If someone told you their grandfather lived through the great depression would you believe them? Justin has we know at least 2nd hand accounts to go on.
As for Cannon of scripture debates, Justin’s theology, etc… not apart of the discussion and I expect any Non-Christian to doubt the Canon. That seems only logical, plausible, and reasonable. It doesn’t really have a place in the thread. Canon belief should only come from Christians… if you didn’t support the Canon… then you probably shouldn’t bother being a Christian at least in the Nicene/Apostles creed sense. You would have to construct a new version of Christ based on whatever you see as Canon, and what you see as not Canon.
I’m kind of puzzled by your charge that I’m trying to make the Jewish people progressive.
Again, it’s not like it’s the Gospel of Mary. It’s the Gospel of Mark and the women aren’t testifying. Further, as I pointed out, I think the more reasonable explanation for their inclusion is to explain why the empty tomb story hadn’t been heard before.
I’m not sure the relevance this has with anything I’ve written.
Please explain where I’m arguing for a progressive culture… This seems like a strained understanding of what I’ve been saying.
I brought him up because there were fictional letters attributed to him - it was common back in that day.
I’m not saying he’s ‘dubious’, I don’t even really understand what you mean by that. I’m not suggesting Justin Martyr didn’t exist.
So Christians should just ignore what scholars say about ‘canon’? The place in this thread is to point out that pseudepigraphy was fairly common. I also pointed out that many of the ‘canon’ letters of Paul are pseudepigraphy.
I believe I misrepresented your position on the culture of the day with Vinces. My bad. Vince… that was for you.
No Christians should never ignore the arguments against Canon and scripture. It doesn’t mean they have to accept them. This is a thread however is on the idea of a Jesus myth… to defend the totality of Canon would be a massive task irrelevant to the thread. The entire Canon doesn’t even need to be discussed here because the point is not “are there parts of which that are untrue”. Which could be valid, but still make Jesus a historical figure… The real question here is, “is any of it true when it comes to Jesus”. Which is an argument that doesn’t need acceptance of everything, but of really… anything from the sources of that time period.
Caesar has all sorts of myths associated to him. Shakespeare has entire plays it looks like were credited to his legend… that he never actually wrote. Again an examination of Canon is profitable. For example it was examining Canon that in large part helped strengthen my position in leaving the Roman Catholic Church. For the Old Testament the Roman Catholics use the Alexandria Jews Old Testament, while the Protestants use the Holy Land Jews Old Testament. Also the texts Roman Catholics accept have such crazy points as “The birth of a daughter is a loss (by the way there is that Jewish sexism again)”… from a guy who has 3 daughters… I can confidently say that’s untrue. It has the same guy die 3 different ways… so which one is it… etc… I could go on.
But yeah Canon study is profitable. But getting into the minutia of specific books isn’t really profitable when the premise is Jesus was a purely created out of thin air myth.
Phrases like “rooted in witness” sound impressive, but how do you establish that? Josephus is relating information that was known to him at the time he was writing in the 90’s. Many scholars think it likely that his source was the Christians themselves who were telling those stories about their origin six decades after the fact. Josephus would certainly be capable of remembering things that happened in the 50’s but there is no indication that he is doing so when he describes the Christians.
I don’t think that first century Jews were progressive either.
I think that both sides in the debate suffer from the same problem: we simply have too few pieces of the puzzle. I suspect that the historical Jesus hypothesis explains a bit more of the data than the purely mythical Jesus hypothesis and that the latter will probably never be more than an intriguing possibility. Nevertheless, I still would label myself a historical Jesus agnostic.
Growing up, my mother-in-law was told that her great-grandfather had been a Confederate spy during the Civil War and that he had been shot trying to infiltrate Union lines. Later in life she did some genealogical research and found out the story she had been told wasn’t quite true. It turns out that her great-grandfather had been a farmer in Illinois with a wife and children when he enlisted in the Union Army. He deserted after the battle of Shiloh and married her great-grandmother in Mississippi, and then disappeared after she got pregnant. My mother-in-law even came across some information indicating that her great-grandfather might have made his way out to Utah and started another family, but she wasn’t able to nail that down before she died.
I have always heard that my great-grandfather fought for the Union and was imprisoned at Andersonville. My sister has tried to confirm this, but hasn’t been able to do so, although she hasn’t been able to refute it either.
So if someone told me that their grandfather had served in the first World War, I would probably be curious about the evidence they had to support their claim.
That’s okay, I was trying to see where you might have gotten that from me. I admit that some of the things I’ve said can be represented that way. I also believe that one of the strategies in the early Christian community (say the first few hundred years) was to target inclusion from the lower classes, which would include women. Richard Carrier advocates this in his book ‘Not the Impossible Faith’, in which he’s quoting (extensively) another scholar (pair of scholars?) that essentially say that - but this is different from saying that it was progressive - at least over all.
I do think that some progressiveness was in some portions of early Christianity, but the majority view was that this was heretical. I believe I quoted Eusibieus (sp?) who’s reason for rejecting the Acts of Paul was because of it’s progressive views of women (that they could preach).
I realize that my participation in this thread might be confusing, since I accept a historical Jesus. What I’m trying to do is head off the bad arguments that I see apologists making. I do not think that all the arguments for Jesus’s existed that are presented are accurate or relevant. I also do not think that all the arguments for Jesus mythicism are accurate or relevant. For instance, just because there are some similarities between pagan beliefs and Christianity does not mean that Jesus didn’t exist. At best it would mean that some of the stories floating around got incorporated into the Jesus story. So, for example, just because Vespasian and Jesus both cured blind people with spit, that doesn’t mean that neither of them existed.
My point in regard to Canon is that some of what is accepted is actually considered fake by scholars. Such things were rampant back then.
Yes, these are good points - just because there are legends does not mean that the person didn’t exist.
What the Mythers have to show is that Jesus is more like, say, Romulus and Remus, then like Mohammad.
In fairness, it could be profitable in getting to a mythical Jesus, if it could be shown to all be false or that interpolations were added to any letter that stated Jesus was historical or what have you (say we could prove that all the letters were hundreds of years after Jesus, say 500 AD, which no scholar believes) - but the likelihood of that is extremely remote.
Yes, I do acknowledged that there are a lot of holes and a lot of unknowns. It’s my position that Jesus probably existed, but who that Jesus is and what he did is very hard to get at.
I can respect the agnostic position, even though I don’t agree with it.
Good points. I’ve read a few things from ancient history (it’s fascinating and I haven’t read nearly enough) and I can confidently say that their methods of research are not nearly as secure as ours are today. IIRC, Justin Martyr and many of the early Christians did not appeal to evidence, they appealed to scripture. I think there’s one point in his dialogue with Trypho where he says something to the effect that he cannot prove the miracle claims actually happened, he can only show that they are essentially supported in the scripture. I will say, I’m not entirely confident of this memory, so take it with a huge grain of salt. I don’t have time to reread his dialogue today or I’d try to confirm it myself.
I will also say, having read Phlegon of Tralles, there were some portions of society that believed extraordinary things without question. How significant were those portions? I cannot say.
I haven’t read Justin Martyr although now I am much more curious. I always admire religious people who are honest about why they believe what they believe.
I’ve always been fascinated by Irenaeous’ assertion that one of the reasons we can be sure there are only four gospels is that cherubim have four faces. It makes me wonder whether he had any better reasons for thinking that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the authors of the gospels he attributed to them.
You can read it here: Saint Justin Martyr: Dialogue with Trypho (Roberts-Donaldson)
I think it’s something like 10-20 pages printed out.
That is interesting WRT Irenaeous. I know that other gospels were accepted as well. For instance, I think Justin accepted the Acts of Pilate (a now known forgery).
The sum total for everything that one deems to be real.
Wow. Look no further for the origins of anti-Semitism. Well, except for the New Testament itself.
Where do you see anti semitism in the New Testament? A convenient sensationalist statement… not rooted in truth. Scripture makes clear no one took Jesus’s life if you are going to go there… he could only lay it down.
As for Vinny, no matter how many times you cite the time Josephus wrote his LAST work of his life it doesn’t change the dates of his life. So again keep bringing up his 94 AD work. The fact remains he would have been about 8 (a reasonable age to start remembering things within 13 years after the death of Jesus). Heck he remembers John the baptist… but we know John died before Josephus as well. Did he also make up John?
Oh and not to mention Josephus writes about the death of James (who he calls the brother of Jesus) in 62 AD. He would have only been 25 though during that time… so maybe he wasn’t a credible witness to there being a man named James who was essentially the head of the church in Jerusalem who said he was Jesus’s brother.
Do more study Vinny. The amount of documentation referring to Jesus is without ancient antiquity pier. Not even close. Not within any reasonable range. As a pure historian the evidence on whether Jesus ever walked the planet is massive. The myth theory even by top agnostic/atheist biblical scholars such as Ehrman today… is considered absolutely absurd and without grounding.
VegasReno,
Actually, Josephus isn’t “a a credible witness to there being a man named James who was essentially the head of the church in Jerusalem who said he was Jesus’s brother.” In nothing he writes does he describe any man named James as being associated with the church in Jerusalem in any way.
And you are absolutely right that Josephus’ birth date allows for the possibility that he was in a position to have personal knowledge about prominent figures in the earliy church. However, unlike the apologist, the historian does not deem something probable just because it is possible.
ed
Well what about the fact that both the Bible and Josephus speak of Caiphus (other histories also cite Caiphus) - plus archeologists found his obelisk. Or how about Josepheus also cites Pilate and once again we have archeologists who found an ancient Roman stone with Pilate’s name on it plus other historians of the time validate him… not to mention Pilate is in other histories. So is Josepheus believable at all? Or just not when it’s convenient for your argument. Feel free to actually base your Jesus myth belief in something substantial at any time.
Just because you read the Gospel accounts and you say “no flipping way” doesn’t negate Jesus being present on the earth at one time. You present your contrary to the historical argument with no foundation I can see… just trying to get side tracked on small picture aspects that don’t correlate.
Feel free to formulate an argument which has any historical logic which would reasonably stand up to Occam’s razor. Again we are talking about Jesus as purely a historical figure.
Why do you think he had any experience with either of these people outside of those who followed them? He was cataloging the history. Both John and Jesus were not, to my knowledge, substantial movements at the time - he probably just interviewed some local Christians and got their information about it.
All you can really say is that he got his information from Christians and what they believed. It’s not like he was interviewing James and Jesus’s disciples.
This isn’t really true and most of the evidence is poor - it consists of what the ancient Christians thought, not necessarily what was routed in truth. As I said, there are a few good reasons for believing in Jesus’s historicity, but again, this is not one of them.
We have written accounts of Romulus and Remus, that doesn’t make them historical, does it?
I do not think that Josephus mentioned Caiaphas, although other ancient sources do mention Pilate. An ossuary was found purporting to be Caiaphas’s, but it’s not clear cut that it’s his.
Just because an ancient source mentions historical figures does not mean that everything or every figure in that source is true and historical. Look at Gilgamesh - it’s generally accepted that he was a historical king. No one believes the Epic of Gilgamesh is true though.
In fact, I think that the historical reality that we know about Pilate suggests that the NT account is highly mythologized. I’ve argued on the boards before that the naturalistic parts of the account seem improbable to me.
This is true - just because the account is unbelievable doesn’t mean there isn’t a historical person there. The gospels show legendary development as it is, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a historical figure behind it.
This, IMO, is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the mythicist theory. It just doesn’t seem parsimonious to me.
How much evidence is there for the historicity of John the Baptist?
(I’m not suggesting John was mythical. I just think it might be interesting to compare with the evidence for Jesus.)