DCHindley

Ratel,

There were many apologists in those days advocating all sorts of viewpoints, including Jewish ones or ones that touched on Judaism in one way or another. As is natural for everyone in all times, individual authors often put a noticeable spin on the data they had derived from their sources. That doesn't make the original data wrong, but it does make use of secondary sources by modern historians tendentious.

For all the folks in these IIdb forums who claim to have Robert Eisler's _Messiah Jesus_, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that he provides us with his analysis of Josephus' use of sources.

As for the existence, and dating, of ancient Jewish sources (many are not especially religious) one might consult Emil Schurer's (revised) _Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ_, volumes 3.i & 3.ii for a list of all of them, including nice summaries, juicy details and bibliographies.

DCH

yalla

Gidday Roger,
"Why not?"
Cos me typing out a 600 year old list of disputed veracity that is currently circulating and putting it up here adds nothing to the alleged veracity of the original list.
It's just repeating what already is there.
If I did that, typed out a list of Jewish kings from a source that is around at the moment, would you consider that I have reinforced the arguments for the validity of such a list?
All we can say, presuming Menander brings no other factors into play, is that he repeats what was generally believed to be accurate at the time.
Nothing more.
cheers
yalla

Roger Pearse

I agree entirely, and that sounds like a good way to proceed.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Not quite the point at issue, to me. If we had the source for Menander, it would be true. But we don't have this (which is why his comment is interesting). Thus we have an additional information source; and we lose data if we disregard it.

Just guessing but I think perhaps this emerged from travelling a bit swiftly around a logical circle here which perhaps ran like this (probably a bit caricatured)? --

1. Josephus quotes Menander to support the OT
2. Menander may have used the OT
3. Therefore Menander can be ignored.

I don't think we know this, tho. We can always think of reasons to ignore a witness.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

yalla

Oh I'm not ignoring him.
I'm just not presuming that his second century BCE knowledge has any corrobarative value as to what was real half a millenia plus earlier.
cheers
yalla

Roger Pearse

The practical difference between these statements is not apparent to me, however.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Doug Shaver

Yes, we can. And therefore . . . what?

Chris Weimer

We should take all witnesses into account, even ones that present no history, because everything contributes to something in a way? :huh:

Doug Shaver

Even if we have no reason to believe they actually witnessed anything?

DCHindley

Chris, think about what you just said.

Evidence/facts about the past are made sense of in the form of historical narratives, which are essentially interpretations. We've already established that sources vary in their characteristics. Even biased and unreliable sources can pass on true facts about the past. It is through the comparison of various accounts that the facts can be identified.

You seem to have a problem with this subjective element inherent in sources. Yet you also want to ignore historical accounts or sources which you have already made negative value judgements about. You are doing right now exactly what you accuse some of these sources of doing. Hey, just deal with sources as they are, no matter how much you don't like any particular one of them.

DCH