Gooch's dad

Toto, do you think Peter Kirby is artificially inflating the burden of proof here?

I'd say that the reason that the burden of proof is on those claiming an interpolation for Ant. 20.9.1 is that, as Peter said, Origen mentions this same phrase quite early in Christian history. Are you thinking that Christian scribes had already changed most copies of Antiquities by the early 200's? I suppose it's possible that just Origen's copy was changed...but that seems like a stretch, no?

Toto

Doherty's explanation is that James was the head of a brotherhood, and "Brother of the Lord" was his honorary title. The word "brother" was commonly used by Christians for fellow believers.

I don't see that there is any "early" tradition for a family of Jesus. Paul identifies James as the Brother of the Lord, not as the brother of a human named Jesus who was Christ. Paul does not speak of any other relatives, unless you count the formulaic phrase "born of a woman." You have to wait until fairly late in early Christianity, whenever Mark was written, before there is a mention of Mary and Joseph and a group of brothers and sisters.

yes. Peter is wise beyond his years, but he has changed his mind at various times, and he is not God (yet). I think I recall Peter starting a thread which demolished the idea that a person asserting an interpolation has the burden of proof, or the similar argument that ancient documents are presumed trustworthy. (But I could be mistaken and do not have time to search for it now.)

It is not clear that Origin is quoting the phrase from Josephus as opposed to commenting on him, and inserting that phrase in his commentary.

Amaleq13

The most important point about Origen's "lost reference" and is that it is an obvious interpolation. He claims that Josephus, in this "lost" passage, blamed the fall of Jerusalem on the execution of James. Not only is this passage missing from extant copies but Josephus makes it very clear that he tended to blame the fate of Jerusalem on the entire rebel movement starting with Judas the Galilean. The second important point is that we cannot say how much of Origen's statement is supposed to be a quote or paraphrase and how much of it is his own commentary on the quote/paraphrase. For all we know, the part about Jesus is entirely Origen's addition to a commentary on an apparent interpolation of Josephus about James/Jerusalem.

I love Peter's website but I think he completely missed the boat on this. Origen's "lost reference" does nothing except increase doubts about the extant short reference.

Even if I assume Jesus to have been historical, the evidence for concluding James to have been his brother is simply too unreliable to be believed IMO. The phrase in Paul seems to make more sense as an interpolation (marginal gloss) than something he would deliberately and without any good reason admit given that he clearly wants to avoid giving any impression that the "Pillars" have greater authority than himself. I also think that it is unlikely Paul would choose to identify any siblings Jesus might have had by connecting them to the Risen Christ ("Lord") rather than the unimportant human ("Jesus").

When we move on the Gospels, we find the brothers of Jesus portrayed as considering him insane but we also find a different James portrayed as part of the "inner circle" of disciples. Is it just a coincidence that Paul's Pillars have the same names as the three primary disciples portrayed in Mark's Gospel?

In Acts, I think we have three "James" mentioned but none is described as the brother of Jesus. The epistle attributed to James never identifies him as the brother of Jesus and the one attributed to Jude identifies him as the brother of James! The Gospel of Thomas has a saying where leadership after Jesus is turned over the "James the Just" with no mention of any sibling relationship.

The Evil One

The Queen of England can apparently trace her ancestry back to Woden, if she cares to. She doesn't, because she's a Christian. But if she wanted to she could. The claims are all there in the records of her ancestors.

Vinnie

Having read several of Burton Mack's works, it never dawned on me that he denied the historicity of Jesus. In fact, his reconstruction of the historical Jesus based off of Q leads me to think he accepts the historical Jesus. O for 1.

Vinnie

Vinnie

I could name a ton of these. Those that actually understand early Christian writings better than amatuer Jesus mythicists on the internet.

spamandham

Sorry for butting in here.

Josephus wrote his works 60+ years after the stated date of the crucifixion, and was also born after that date. He could not have been an eyewitness. It is also extremely unlikely that he could have known any eyewitnesses given the average lifespan in those days. He also did not mention who his witnesses were regarding the comments on Jesus.

Even if Josephus did write those passages, they prove only that the concept of Jesus was known at that time, something we already knew from Paul's much earlier writings. It still provides little, if any, significant evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

If Eusebius is guilty of fudging Josephus' works, as seems likely, he didn't do a good enough job of deception to make a real difference.

Vinnie

Mel Gibson is not even a scholar. Mainstream scholars are critical scholars. If you don't know the difference between Mel Gibson and a critical scholar I don't have much interest in dialoguing with you.

Freke, Gandy and DOhert are all amatuers. We are speaking of a "scholarly consensus". Only formally trained scholars who publish regularly in peer revieed journals qualify. Please list all the mainline peer reviewed journals Doherty, Freke and Gandy publish in? My guess is they probably aren't allowed to publish in them.

And if size of work and footnotes are are an indication of accuracy then John Meier wins hands down.

If Rob P is an actualy mythicist he would qualify as one. But does he publish his Jesus mythicism in mainline works and also in peer reviewed journals?

Vinnie

Vinnie

Ten is easy enough. Most of course are Christians as making the lifelong committment to study this field requires this interest in it.

At any rate the consensus stems from atheist scholars (the few there are//were) to Jewish ones to Christian ones (of all manner of conservative to liberal--including Crossan, Mack and others).

Where is most or much of Meier's reconstruction on the religious stuff? Have you even read him? He says up front he does not reconstuct the real Jesus? That figure is unknown to us.

Your red herring is useless.

Vinnie

Amaleq13

Do Crossan or Meier "publish regularly in peer reviewed journals"?