TedM

Geez, I can't think of a single way he got from a village to Jerusalem during a 30 year period after his brother was killed and thought by many to be the resurrected Messiah. What a conundrum! Why in the world would any of those believers pay attention to his brother? What possible authority might he have? Thanks so much for your insight--I'd never thought of that before.

Then this favors intentional deceit and NOT a marginal gloss since the interpolator most likely would have had to intentionally remove 'brother of Damnaeus or whatever it is, and replace it with a totally different person. It is not likely that there was no mention of Damnaeus until later.

This also favors an unlikely lack of follow-through: If it is intentional deceit one would expect either some larger explanation of who this Jesus, called Christ, was, or a reference to an explanation of who Jesus was elsewhere in his writings. The lack of either reference argues against intentional deceit.

So if a marginal gloss is not likely, and intentional deceit is not likely, what are we left with?:

The more likely explanation is that 'brother of Jesus, called Christ' was in the original and that the writings also referenced who Jesus was and why he was 'called Christ' at another place. This doesn't require that the Tesimonium existed as it currently stands, just that Josephus explained who Jesus was at some other place in his writings. The place where the Testimonium resides is a perfect place to refer to someone causing a temple disturbance under Pilate's rule.

Duvduv

Why do you answer a question with a question?! Only Jews such as myself are said to do that.
In any event, no, I don't believe that an educated priest serving in the Temple would be limited to a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible. I already argued that "Josephus" was very likely like a Mark Twain. I don't believe the bulk of those writings were written by a rabbinic Jew. And this is reinforced by the fact that this man is never mentioned a single time in any traditional Jewish text covering that period.

Besides, do you believe the bunk about the Four Philosophies and about Massada? If you do, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Iskander

Road map of biblical palestine

Clivedurdle

Nothing like a good anointing! Etes vous un chretien?

One of Apollo's names was good shepherd and I think the following is on the right track

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/melange.html

We are looking at Chinese Whispers.

I do not think there is anything fraudulent here, just an enthusiastic monk late one afternoon, hungry, been up half the night praying, doing a marginal note cross referencing Matthew and his superiors thinking - the lad is brilliant! Reread the scenes from Name of the Rose, Eco.

Especially as this Jesus is the son of the High Priest Damneus!

Clivedurdle

I did not realise that it is very common for non arabic muslims to have read and learnt the koran off by heart and not understand a word of it! Many also are highly skilled calligraphers!

Why would some scribe in a scriptorium actually be able to understand properly what they are writing? Why should not someone (probably more senior) adding marginal glosses, also actually be not that fluent and think they are increasing the holiness of a text by cross referencing a phrase from a gospel?

I do not understand why the muddle theory of history - nazarite and nazarene is another one - look at those maps! - is not given more credence!

Sod's Law - if something can go wrong..

Good and anointing is another one! I recommend a full comparison of all ambiguities!

Clivedurdle

At the beginning of the American Civil War there was a problem. Guns were blowing up in soldiers faces - there was more damage from their own weapons than the enemies'!

This was because it was normal for soldiers to make their own bullets, or a local smithy would for a few local townsfolk. No quality control that the bullet would actually go down the barrel!

Solution, standardisation, mass production, quality control, later leading to Ford and Time and Motion and Quality Management.

There is no need to even go to pious fraud, it is only people thinking they have seen the light and writing things down. They were not behaving like Archimedes and his mates, writing something down, and sending it off for formal discussion and argument! Jesus called Christ is almost predictable!

sotto voce

Anyone who has a rabbi is no Jew.

Duvduv

Why rhetoric here? There should be a separate thread used SOLELY for exchanging rhetoric and bickering. According to Jewish law a person born of a bona fide Jewish mother or converted Jewish mother is a Jew whether or not either the parent or child has a rabbi. Anyway, it's only the place for discussing matters of substance (I hope) and not for rhetoric and bickering.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce Quote: Originally Posted by Duvduv Why do you answer a question with a question?! Only Jews such as myself are said to do that. Anyone who has a rabbi is no Jew.

outhouse

isnt the greek word here for brother, indicate a family realation over that of non family?


If that is the case I would go for gloss over redactional fictional charactor

interpolation to build divinity, changing the name. I dont know

TedM

How else can one view it though if they replace an obvious reference to James, brother of Jesus Damnaeus? How is that a gloss? I don't see any good argument around this. The passage didn't easily allow mistaking this James with the brother of Jesus if it originally said James's brother was Damneaus--especially since Damneaus is again mentioned later in the passage. The passage as it stands now doesn't say Jesus Damnaeus was the brother of James at all. So, you would have the intential removal of any relation between Damneus and James in at least one place if not two. No, to me any claim of interpolation goes hand in hand with intentional deceit. Yet, as I said before intentional deceit is not likely given the lack of explanation or reference regarding calling Jesus 'christ'.

Most reasonable conclusion then is that it was not interpolated at all, and that another reference explaining why Jesus was called the Christ also existed.