outhouse

I don't think the man was that dumb.


Following John D Crossan. he sets up a demonstration mocking Pilate by entering Jerusalem on a female donkey.

Could be many things. Fiction is a possibility as the authors were building divinity through prophecy.

But he could have been setting the crowd up with this first demonstration.


The incident in the temple he may not have been looking for "god" to help. He had 400,000 ish attendants that could have been used as a tool if properly motivated. He sacrificed himself taking a chance he organize the crowd to turn on the corrupt temple authorities and Roman garrison, and simply failed.


Think about it, he lived his life in a hovel like Nazareth where no god saved the oppressed while in eyeshot, Hellenist lived in opulence in Sepphoris. He wasn't waiting on some myth, he took actions in his own hands.

Grog

I'm not sure that this addresses the point I tried to make. I might have to revisit what I said.



I don't see evidence for that person, though.

I think the whole thing is fake. See Richard Carrier's argument on that point (unfortunately, I can't link to it because it is in a journal). Maybe somebody can link to a summary? It's too long of an argument and TF discussion tend to derail threads. I also think the John the Baptist reference is fake and I will give one brief reason as to why, but it is related to why the TF is fake. If you look at the John the Baptist reference in Josephus (scroll down to Chapter 5, paragraphs 1-3), you can see that the John section is a clear seam breaking up a unit about a dispute between Aretus and Vitellius.

Look at the end of the preceding paragraph:

That flows nicely into the paragraph following the John the paragraph:

You can see how clearly and seamlessly this runs together. Yet breaking this up is the paragraph about John the Baptist. Again, perhaps coincidentally, like Jesus, John is referred to in positive terms, much the same as Jesus in the TF.

I additionally think the second reference to Jesus in the TF is completely forged, but I won't get into that.

MrMacSon

perhaps best to provide the reference ...

Grog

"Origen, Eusebius, and the Accidental Interpolation in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200". Journal of Early Christian Studies 20.4 (Winter 2012).

This article is about the second reference to Jesus in Josephus. Here is the abstract:

Abstract
Analysis of the evidence from the works of Origen, Eusebius, and Hegesippus concludes that the reference to "Christ" in Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200 is probably an accidental interpolation or scribal emendation and that the passage was never originally about Christ or Christians. It referred not to James the brother of Jesus Christ, but probably to James the brother of the Jewish high priest Jesus ben Damneus.


In this article, though, he also addresses the argument that an original Josephus reference was tampered with to give it more of a Christian flavor. He demonstrates, I think conclusively, that the argument is not as plausible as simply holding that the entire reference is an interpolation.

TedM

It is possible that he and his group of followers were well aware of the prophecy about the Messiah-King riding a donkey into Jerusalem. He may have thought that he was going to be that Messiah, so he purposefully decided to 'fulfill' it and the meaning wasn't lost on his followers. In this scenario it clearly would have been both a confirmation and a set-up for the arrival of the kingdom of God which he had been preaching all along.

This very public display as well as that in the temple may have really caught the attention of his eventual accusers: The Gospels spend a fair amount of time showing how the religious leaders challenged his authority--trying to catch him with difficult/trick questions, etc..He had gotten their attention big time.

outhouse

What had he done up to the entrance into the temple, that would indicate of him being a messiah?

Or was he just wrote in that way afterwards?







We are not even sure exactly what the kingdom of god translates too, for a Galilean Jew.

We know what the different Hellenistic authors had different positions. A Galilean? we have no clue.



Agreed.


Yes that is some of the mythology. And when we look at Gjohn, Jesus is making multiple trips to Jerusalem.

Being questioned for tax evasion gives credibility towards a Zealot

But I think a lot of what your reporting her is later attributes as the Christian movement was separating themselves from Judaism and playing to a Roman audience making the Jews the bad guys.

Reality is with 400,000 ish attendants, no matter what he taught or said, he would have been invisible.

Actions speak louder then words, and it looks as if his actions are what got him killed. These mirror what a Zealot would do as well.

TedM

Either is plausible. Apparent 'miracles' believed by his followers, and teachings about the coming kingdom could have generated enough interest. If the Egyptian and Judas the Galilean could generate a following, why not Jesus? I would think that teachings about a coming kingdom of God would by default be viewed as anti-Roman by those who heard the teachings.



The basics from the OT -- a Messiah who would be king in Jerusalem to deliver his people, was all that was needed to inspire Jesus to make a grand entry into Jerusalem.

Grog

Here's more on Carrier's take on the TF. Carrier argues that attempts to salvage a partial TF are baseless, illogical, or irrelevant. One example he gives is Whealey's hypothesis that the original TF said "he was believed to be the Christ," and not, as it now reads "he was the Christ" depends on the implausible assumption that "all subsequent manuscripts of the [Antiquities of the Jews], as well as all Eusebius manuscripts that contain the quotation, were emended to agree with the corruption." Carrier concludes "that all AJ manuscripts would so perfectly agree with a later corruption that somehow simultaneously occurred in all the texts of Eusebius...is rather improbable." [emphases in original]

I think this argument would apply to any proposed alternative TF. How do these proposed interpolations occur simultaneously in all subsequent manuscripts? As Carrier points out: the TF appears to not have been in Origen's copy of the TF which was probably directly ancestral to the copies of Eusebius. Yet the copy that Eusebius had did have the TF, in whole, in its current extant state. That with all the other evidence, including the seam evidence, the observation that the TF is out of character for the author to have ever penned, etc., really, in my mind rules out any possibility other than that the TF is a whole interpolation into the text of Josephus.

outhouse

What following did Jesus have a week before his death?

Was he a military leader? or one of many unknown traveling teachers?



Jesus and Judas bear no similarity.



ONLY if we follow the mythology as literal.

TedM

I"m not sure what you are disputing. All I'm saying is that a 'kingdom of God' message along with Jesus' own belief that he was the Messiah-King could have explained what was written: he rode into Jerusalem just like the Messiah was expected to do, caused a stir in the temple, was questioned as to his authority, arrested and crucified. It didn't require that Jesus was a military leader planning to overthrow Rome..only that OTHERS thought he was because of his 'message'. In the minds of others, the 'kingdom of God' was by default anti-Rome, which was enough to get him arrested.

Jesus could have thought himself to be the Suffering Servant, and thus been planning his own death, but none of his followers could grasp that idea. Or, he could have thought himself to be heading a revolt against Rome, which failed, and was wiped clean from the record. In either case we may have a strand of the truth -- ie he consistently taught about the 'kingdom of God'., and entrance into Jerusalem could have been his signal that he believed the time had come for it to be revealed, and that was enough to explain why he was killed.

What we DON'T have clarity on is why he and not Judas or the Egyptian, or others, was believed so early on to have been resurrected, with a continued movement after his death. Was it because he was actually quite popular with the people, or something more 'quirky' -- ie a few charismatic folks talking about having seen him or having a vision of him, or perhaps there was a Suffering Servant ideology which others quickly applied to Jesus as the paschal lamb sacrifice for Israel's sins? I don't see why it couldn't have been some combination of all 3 of these.