Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 08-20-2013, 08:57 PM

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Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

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Originally Posted by ph2ter

From the review of James McGrath at least becomes clear that the evidence for Jesus’ historicity collapses into very few points:
- the mention of ‘James, the Lord’s brother’ by Paul in Gal. 1.19
- Tacitus Annals 15.44
- the testimony of Origen that Josephus mentioned Jesus but did not regard him as the Christ, which according to him confirms the consensus view that there was an original reference to Jesus by Josephus behind the later Testimonium Flavianum as redacted by Christians

If there is a way to convincingly nullify these points, the case will collapse completely.

Regarding James, see if you can make any substance of McGrath's responses in this dialogue.

On Annals 15.44 see my blog entry as a start.

This blog entry is a very basic examination of Origen on James as derived from Hegesippus (a name thought in ancient time to be derived from "Josephus", as in Pseudo-Hegesippus, a Latin reformulation of Josephus with an anti-Jewish bent).

Do we have any clear evidence that Origen knew the works of Hegesippus?

Definitely not, but if the name Hegesippus was confused with Josephus as in the case of the author of De Excidio then you might not expect the name Hegesippus to be used by someone believing it to be the same as Josephus.

outhouse · 08-20-2013, 09:06 PM

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Originally Posted by Minimalist

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It seems to me that Verenna and Thompson (V&T) are saying that since the NT is such a dubious source, we should be somewhat skeptical of Jesus' existence to the extent that it's based on this source.

That seems like a very reasonable position. Let's remember that the Romans did not notice xtians until the second century.

Nero doesn't count?

ph2ter · 08-21-2013, 12:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Regarding James, see if you can make any substance of McGrath's responses in this dialogue.

On Annals 15.44 see my blog entry as a start.

This blog entry is a very basic examination of Origen on James as derived from Hegesippus (a name thought in ancient time to be derived from "Josephus", as in Pseudo-Hegesippus, a Latin reformulation of Josephus with an anti-Jewish bent).

Thank you for the links. I find your solutions very persuasive.
Why don't you publish your findings in a scholarly article?

'James the brother of the Lord' in Gal. 1.19 is the probable source of confusion behind all references to James the brother of Jesus.

Chrestiani of Tacitus' Annals and their founder Christ punished in time of Tiberius is in all probability somehow related to Chrestus of Svetonius who lived in Rome in time of Claudius and who instigated Jews to make disturbances. According to Cassius Dio the Romans had the problems with Jews because of their increased number and it was in their interest to make disturbances among them in order to get an excuse for expelling them from Rome. My interpretation is that Chrestus can be only an agent of Rome (secret agent) who made disturbances among Jews in the best interest of Roman state in time of Claudius and Nero.
Later Christians confused him with Jesus Christ and that somehow crept into the final texts of Tacitus and Svetonius.

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