Toto

Not to speak for aa, but this is one possibility for Christian origins that has been discussed in various places - that there was no Christianity of any sort before the destruction of the Temple. There were Jewish messianist sects, and one or more of them evolved into what we know as Christianity, and invented an earlier history for the movement, possibly by writing fiction (the gospels and Acts) or by rewriting Jewish literature to add references to Jesus (Paul's letters?).

krosero

I see; I was not clear. What I wrote looked like a straight-up assertion on my part. But I was offering here what the inevitable conclusion of an argument for interpolation must be; "as I say" was a very poor way of writing it. But no deception was meant.

Look at the context, and you'll see that I was trying to lay out the argument for interpolation and its implications:

I have been writing in this thread under unusual fatigue so it appears that I'm doing a lousy job even of writing clearly.

Kevin Rosero

krosero

rlogan, though it was not obvious to me in those threads where you did not reply to several questions I asked of you, it is obvious now that you've replied to me for the first time and I can get a good look at your manner of replying: you are too quick to see "obvious hypocrisy" and disengenuous arguments without even trying to examine where a misunderstanding might lie; and it now obvious to me that you're a lot farther off from even understanding the HJ position (much less refuting it) than I formerly gave you credit for. It is indescribably wearying to argue with a person so determined to see opposing arguments as dishonest, and I see no further point in it.

I only hope someday that this forum sees less of this attitude toward HJ positions and more openness to dialogue. That will only make it a better forum and can only bring us closer to understanding any question, including the historicity of Jesus.

Kevin Rosero

k_smith123

I've got some questions myself. What if the "Jewish Revolt" was really a Christian revolt? Could Josephus have conspired with his "silent" contemporaries--the tacit Tacitus and the tranquil Suetonius Tranquillus--to save the Christians from future persecutions? Could the unnamed man that Josephus claimed to have saved from crucifixion (Life of Josephus para. 75) have been an allusion to the Christians? Could Joseph of Arimathea have been an allegoric representation of Josephus and the "empty tomb" a metaphor for Josephus' history? Could this be the reason that Christ is portrayed in the Gospels as attempting to hide his identity?

rlogan

You're tired, as you say, and perhaps need rest.

In the meantime, I am not interested in relentless unsubstantiated hypotheticals with one aim in mind - apologia for a Historical Jesus.

rlogan

The revolt was so widespread and so well attested to it would be impossible to be otherwise.

Conspiracy theory without motive.

The Christians sure don't seem to think anything of it. Why should you put forward things that even they do not?

Maybe all of Josephus is a clever attestation to Jesus, if we just look at it correctly...


This was necessitated by Isaiah 53.

Like in speaking before multitudes, overturning tables in the temple, calling the religious authorities hypocrites to their faces and such?

Good old anonymous Jesus...

spin

Sorry, nothing that gathers everything together in one place exists that I know of. I've had a few partial attempts. Here's a list of some of the further difficulties with the passage:

1. Despite the fact that Tacitus knows that "Nero withdrew his eyes from the cruelties he commanded", Agricola 45, our passage has Nero uncharacteristically "mingl[ing] with the people in the dress of a charioteer", A.15.44, as the christians are tortured and killed. While the charioteer part seems par for the course, his presence at the cruelties isn't.
2. This passage's Roman populace is supposed to know enough about the supposed fledgling group to distinguish who were christians in the society and loathe them.
3. Pilate, who we know was a prefect, is called a procurator in this passage, while procurators did not have the magisterial powers to be governors until the time of Claudius. We know this from evidence from Tacitus, who also indicates he is aware of when procurators came to control Judea.
4. Tacitus whose rhetorical eloquence was well known in his own time is supposed to have written this (the subject is christus): Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat. (p/b/f all made with the lip, making this an awfully twisted alliterative passage, for someone famous in the literature for shunning formalisms in style.)

There are more problems about content and benefit, but these should whet your appetite if anything will on the subject.


spin

ynquirer

All of this is so-called internal evidence, which is considerable weaker than any external evidence of interpolation. What makes a difference is that internal evidence depends on interpretation, and one can always oppose an interpretation to another. For instance:

1. Minor contradictions between Roman historians are rather frequent. Tacitus himself says that Cumanus and FeliX were procurators at the same time, the former in Samaria whilst the latter in Galilea, while Josephus says that Cumanus was first and Felix, his successor, later on, both ruling a unified Judea.

2. That’s a problem in whatever witch-hunting.

3. This is not what Tacitus says, but a personal interpretation by spin. Tacitus says that the government of Judea, after the kings, was entrusted by Claudius to knights and freedmen, yet the word “procurator” is lacking.

4. Questions about rhetorical eloquence assumed in an author, and allegedly missing in a paragraph, are the weakest type of internal evidence of interpolation.

Proof that spin’s position is far from “mainstream” even among those that either deny or seriously doubt Jesus’ historicity, is the fact that many of them accept the authenticity of the paragraph, while question Tacitus’ sources.

Actually, Tacitus’ mentioning the word “procurator” is proof of authenticity, for - why would a Christian scribe include that word in his forgery, provided that no mention of the word occurs in the Latin gospels? Mark and Luke call him simply Pilatus, while Matthew says he was a “praeses,” and John suggests he was a praetor since he calls the governor’s hall “praetorium.” Such a scribe would more naturally interpolated either the word “praeses” or “praetor,” but “procurator” makes no sense at all.