TedM

Jay, you are always very polite and kind here, and I appreciate your taking the time to respond. I just don't know how you have come to having such extremist views. You seem to have a good knowledge of a lot of things, and you seem quite logical, so your positions are a puzzle to me. It seems to me (and maybe this is my own naivette), that you reject the evidence we have with little reason, and accept wild ideas with even less support. For these reasons, I wouldn't even know where to begin to respond to your reply here. No ill will intended. I just think we are on two different planes at this point.

take care and happy holidays,

ted

aa5874

There is no-one whatsoever called James the Just in the entire NT.

There are 4 persons of relevance called James in the NT.
1. James, supposedly one of the brothers of Jesus, the carpenter.
2. James, supposedly one of the brothers of Jesus, the carpenter's son.
3. James an apostle, the brother of John, a son of Zebedee.
3. James an apostle, the son of Alphaeus.

In the entire Gospels, it was never established that Jesus had a brother named James. The author of GMark asked questions that he never answered.

Mark 6.3, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Jude and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?

Is he or is he not? The author of gMark does not say.

The author of gMatthew confuses the reader even more, by asking similar questions, but did not answer them. But the author of gMatthew further complicates the confusion by asking, in Matthew 14.55, "Is not this the carpenter's son.......?

So, is James the brother of the carpenter or the carpenter's son?
The author of gMatthew does not say.

The next time we read about a Jesus having a brother is in Galation 1.19, where an an author called Paul wrote, "But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother."

Now, could the author have made a mistake? He could have made a very big mistake.

Using the NT and "Church History" by Eusebius, the massive error may be revealed.

From the Gospels, it is noticed that there is no involvement or mention of James, the supposed brother of Jesus, in the ministry or any events of Jesus and that James the apostle, son of Zebedee, is mentioned several times in the company of Jesus with his brother John, son of Zebedee and Peter.

And in at least two occasions, Jesus ministered unto James, the son of Zebedee, his brother John and Peter by themselves without the other apostles present.

Only James, John and Peter were present when he raised the young woman from the dead (Mark 5.37). Again, Jesus was transfigured only in the presence of James, John and Peter (Mark 9.2).
Even in Acts, after the ascension of Jesus, we find James, John and Peter, the apostles together with the others.

So James in the Gospels, refers to the apostle James, son of Zebedee, or James the son of Alphaeus, with respect to the ministry of Jesus.

There were two apostles called James, one the son of Zebedee, the other the son of Alphaeus, according to the Gospels and Acts. There is no mention whatsoever of any James son of Joseph as an apostles in any of those books.

So, if the author of Galations saw an apostle named James, it would most likely be either James son of Zebedee or James son of Alphaeus, not the brother of the capenter or the carpenter's son.

Is this not James the brother of the carpenter and the carpenter's son?

James is Jesus' uncle, brother, father, cousin and son? Who is this James?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ted,

Thanks. I always try to follow the evidence wherever it leads. I hope to explicate my methodologies more clearly in the future.

Happy Holidays.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

TedM

Are you kidding? There is nothing to be confused about here. I'm not even reading the rest of your post if this is how you approach a passage like this. Very unreasonable.

ted

Doug Shaver

I don't get your point. My point was that if the copyist had had some common sense, he would have been careful not to make the deceit obvious, because he would have realized that otherwise he would fail to further his cause. He wanted the reader to think that Josephus knew about Jesus. Common sense would have told him that the reader would not think so if it were obvious that the reference had been tampered with. Common sense would also have told him that tampering would have been obvious if Josephus were made to say, simply and without qualification, that Jesus was the Christ. The forger of the TF did not have that much sense.

Let us first stipulate that the interpolation, if it happened, was made sometime after the middle of the second century -- late second or early third.

I don't think Christians at this time were arguing with their detractors about whether Jesus was a man who had walked this earth. I think they were arguing only about whether he had done anything to justify being worshipped as the son of God.

The detractors would have pointed out (as many still do to this day), that if he had done such spectacular deeds as to inspire belief in his divinity, then he would surely have gotten a lot of attention, at least among Jews living in Palestine. The gospels themselves assert that he was very famous, not only in Galilee but in neighboring regions such as Syria. If Josephus had said nothing at all about him, the question would naturally have come up: Why not? Never mind Roman historians. Surely a Jewish historian would have said something?

The Christian response had to say that he was indeed famous but also that notwithstanding his fame, Jesus and his message were rejected by most Jews. "He came to his own, and his own received him not." And so, they knew about him, but they were not impressed. By this reasoning, Josephus could not ignore him entirely, but had to dismiss him as someone of no real consequence. Hence, "Jesus the so-called Christ," from which a Christian apologist could argue, "It's not true that nobody heard about him, but it is true that practically nobody believed him -- which was how he himself said it would be."

The copyist might well have been tempted to do something like that. I think it assumes too much to argue that he could not have resisted that temptation. If you're going to alter someone else's work, the smart thing is to keep the alteration to a minimum consistent with your polemical purposes. The forger of the TF was not that smart. The TF scribe tried to say, "Jesus was the savior of the world, and Josephus knew it." The James scribe settled for, "Jesus was so famous that Josephus could not ignore him, much as he might have wished to."

aa5874

How bizarre? You do not read my entire post and call it unreasonable! After reading your entire post, I find your statement totally unreasonable and without logic.

jjramsey

But this assumes that for the copyist, merely having it appear that Josephus knew about Jesus would be a sufficient payoff. We are probably not dealing with people who are really all that concerned with trying to "prove" Jesus' historicity. With docetism, possibly, or with other heresies, yes. With wanting to boost the honor of Jesus or God, yes. Demonstrating Jesus' historicity, however, is a concern that is relatively modern.

(BTW, I am using the term "honor" in the context of an honor-shame culture.)

The TF most likely looks wrong not only because the forger or tamperer wasn't careful, but also because he was trying to honor Jesus. Simply adding a lukewarm reference to Jesus wouldn't do this.

aa5874

In the entire "Paulie Epistles," all the information about this James that "Paul" met in Jerusalem, is that he is the brother of the Lord, and again, in Antiquities, the same refrain, James the brother of Jesus, who is called Christ.

There is nothing at all about James' life as an apostle in the Gospels, the Pauline Epistles or the writings of Josephus. And if the words, "save James the Lord's brother," is removed from Galations 1.19 and, "who was called Christ" from AJ 20.9.1, then there would nothing on this so-called apostle.

It seems that Galations 1.19 and AJ 20.9.1 are dependent on each other and perhaps both passages were interpolated by the same person.

Doug Shaver

Yes, and I explained why I think so.

Yes, and I said as much.

To assert that there was never any earlier disagreement about his historicity presupposes his historicity.

If he never existed, then there would have been a period during which some Christians affirmed his existence and other Christians denied it. There being no unambiguous record of such a debate, we can only speculate as to how long it went on and how much of it was put in writing. We do not, however, have to speculate about what would have happened to any documents that recorded such a debate.

His carelessness lay in making Josephus appear to be honoring Jesus. A more impartial reference would have sufficed to answer those who were arguing that a man who had done the things attributed to Jesus would not have gone unnoticed by contemporary historians. My argument is that the forger's primary purpose was likely no more than to produce evidence that Jesus was not in fact unnoticed.

Toto

Ken Olson has developed the thesis that the forger of the TF was Eusebius. He has done this by showing that the point made in the TF are particular points that Eusebius stressed - that Jews and Greeks both followed Jesus, that the movement started in an earlier time and had lasted to this day, etc.

He gives some sources on the last link on his blog, http://kaimoi.blogspot.com/, which has not been updated since 2005, possibly because he is working on his Ph D thesis on the subject.