outhouse

Red lights would go off, brining it into the same room as a PC checking plagiarism.

stephan huller

So? Maybe the problem is with Josephus. The gospel makes clear there were other robbers at the fifteenth year of Tiberius. I think she is on to something but I am not sure I agree with her conclusions.

stephan huller

And robbers are present at the time of Jesus in the Slavonic text and others. Its just the Greek recension

Adam

The time-shifting seems to make a good case. As Toto notes, the reversals with the Egyptian seem way 0ff-base. Setting the historical Jesus within the time-frame about 50 CE would make the background fit better, but best to leave the gospel texts pacifistic, etc. This would require that the Christian writers from the start settled on Pilate and Caiaphas as code for later rulers in order to make their documents seem innocuous, particularly if there had been any real or perceived association between Jesus and the Egyptian or associates of the Egyptian. On my seven eyewitness records hypothesis, John Mark would have started this from the outset. The other documents from Jesus's lifetime, Q1 and the Johannine Discourses, don't mention public names. Nor do my later four eyewitness mention Caiaphas or Pilate except in the context of the Passion. Later editing added Caiaphas in Matthew at 26:3 and 26:57 and John 11:49. (Neither Caiaphas nor Annas are given in gMark at all, perhaps omitted because known by the author to be not literally correct.) The only systematic chronological mentions of either are by Luke in both gLuke and Acts. Thus keeping the code going would not have been that difficult: everyone followed John Mark's lead in the Passion Narrative with "Pilate" and the aforementioned "Caiaphas" verses (and I usually attribute John 11:46-50 to John Mark). The ultimate collaborator in the scheme would have been the final editor of gLuke and Acts in which "Pilate" appears at Luke 3:1, 13:1 and Acts 3:13, 4:27, and 13:28 and "Caiaphas" at Luke 3:2 and Acts 4:6. Note that John Mark is mentioned by name in Acts at 12:12, 25; 15:37, 39, and the "we" (apparent eyewitness) passages pick up for (presumably) Luke at Acts 16:11. There is a close connection between the two men. More extremely, all the references could be attributed to the one man, John Mark, as the author of Ur-Marcus. (Even Luke 3:2 can fit within Proto-Luke, detailing the "code" in its most complete statement.")

I'm just saying that a modified acceptance of Einhorn might actually help Christian apologetics with the problems in Acts (Gamaliel's speech, Theudas, Judas, etc.), though not fitting in with the Apostle's Creed nor the Nicene Creed.

maryhelena

The gospels or Josephus?

Perhaps this is the real argument here (not the speculation regarding the Josephan story of the Egyptian). The time period of the gospel story for JC was a time of peace in Judea i.e. no robbers planing open revolt.

In other words, re Einhorn's research into the Josephan use of 'robbers', the gospel crucifixion story is not historically plausible in the time period in which it is set down - the time of Pilate and Tiberius.

This is a big, a very big, argument against the historicity of the gospel JC figure.

The Josephan writer hoist upon his own petard: The Josephan usage of 'robbers' does not support the TF. The TF crucifixion story under Pilate is pseudo-history.

Yes, of course, one can run with the idea that the TF is completely a christian interpolation. It contradicts the Josephan usage of 'robbers', revolutionaries, during the gospel time frame. i.e. there were none.

Or - one could entertain the idea, the possibility, that the Josephan writer was endeavoring to support the gospel story with the TF crucifixion story under Pilate.

Why the christians would have interpolated the TF is a no-brainer i.e. they wanted historical evidence for JC. But that answer is a dead-end. The bigger questions resolve around the relationship between the Josephan stories and the gospel stories. That is what Einhorn's article is endeavoring to fathom. Her conclusions are questionable i.e. that JC is the Egyptian. There is no historical evidence for JC nor for the Josephan Egyptian.

outhouse

While there was not a open revolt, under Roman oppression revolt was always on the table, and constantly ready to explode.

When Joshua was a child there was a revolt in galilee over taxes.

And there was always unrest in the peasant jews in Galilee towards oppression and over taxation. The burden of Sepphoris rebuilding was placed upon them. Nazareth would have been nothing more then a work camp for laborers who were not at all happy with what amounts to forced labor.


And of course the only writings we have to work with are from the unknown Roman authors, playing a tune to the Romans so as not to quash their movement from the get go. Always playing the jews as the real enemies to the empire.

This leaves out almost all the details of Roman oppression, over taxation, and the hardships of daily Jewish lives.

Adam

I have misplaced my copy of Josephus, but fortunately I searched and found Rene Salm's 2012 translation of Georges Ory's 1956

Samaria the Messiah's Homeland .Contradicting Einhorn he portrays an insurrection in 35 CE so significant that it caused Pilate's dismissal from office:
This seems to demolish Einhorn's necessity to displace the gospel events from 33 to 55 CE. Ory sees this Dositheus as Theudas and John the Baptist, (but he also identifies John and Jesus in his Docetism). As described by Celsus, he seems to fit Einhorn's Egyptian. Does this indicate that Jesus should be dated to 35 CE, not 30?

Chili

That is not nice of you to say, and do think maybe he crashed over Egypt after he went up? Because Christ stayed, did he not?

wordy

I should not be active in this kind of threads at all.
Sure I find it very interesting. Like reading of UFO Alien encounters.
Did they really meet these Aliens that came in big Mother Ship.?

Okay back on topic. I look at all this from the other perspective.

The texts are supposed to be read allowed in a group of believers
and possible interested persons that may be converted to be believers.

Suppose I am right then follows logically that the purpose of the texts
are to make the listeners to the text to decide on to commit themselves
to the group norms and to be loyal to their cause and aim and way of life.

So that means the writers set up the text using the resources needed
for to produce a story that works for that purpose.

But sure I can be wrong. I only try to get what is going on
and to see it from that perspective makes more sense to me.

I think John 4 is a good example. Jesus alone approach
an anonymous woman at a well and when the 12 arrive later
they stand at a distance because that woman is seen as somebody
not to talk to if one want to stay "following the Law" but when one read
what they talk about teh woman and Jesus it is obvious that they talk about
who he is and what it means to her and her people the Samaritans.

So the story try to say many things. It is set up to address norms and
expectations and things people have to address. How do we relate to
the Samaritans. Well Jesus showed by his example how to relate to them.

That is the purpose of the story to include the Samaritans. Them too
should have Jesus as their savior so treat them as friends of Jesus.

Just my very amateurish take. So why not maybe they took the story of the Egyptian too
and tried to say something by weaving it into their agenda.

Compare with the Mary of Magdalene story her to be the one Jesus loved
and the sign is that he kissed her in public.

Is not such stories the evidence that it is when the reading of the text happen
that the real story begin. One strengthen the faith and commitment of a member
or recruit a new member by the rhetoric skill of the story read aloud to those
willing to listen. Expectations created. The sell the Group norms via the stories told.

stephan huller

What is odd about John 4 is that many texts reference 'the Messiah' which a concept unknown to Samaritans. In other traditions we have 'the Christ called Messiah' or something like this which is incomprehensible. What exactly did the Samaritans take Jesus to be? Can't be the messiah. So what then?