aa5874

As soon as you ADMITTED that Josephus mentioned a number of individual claimed Messiahs then you are argument is destroyed. Josephus is a non-apologetic source.

If Jesus was a claimed Messiah then it is likely that he would be mentioned by non-apologetic sources.

Josephus mentioned Jesus son of Ananus, an ordinary man,(Wars of the Jews" 6.5.)who simply stated there would be some calamity in Jerusalem yet did not say a word about a supposed Messiah about whom there should have been written books called Gospels with PRECISE predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem. (Mark 13 and Matthew 24)

Josephus himself lived in Galilee and was supposed to be a contemporary of PETER with the other disciples and Paul who supposedly preached about a Jewish Messiah all over Judea and Major cities of the Roman Empire including ROME itself.

J-D

You have not presented sufficient basis for any such estimate of likelihood.

aa5874

That is all rhetoric and meaningless. No matter how much evidence is provided you can make the same assertion.

I can also say you have not presented sufficient basis for your claims.

I have referred to "Wars of the Jews" 6.5 and you can read that Josephus, a non-apologetic source, mentioned Jesus son of Ananus who was declared a Mad-man after crying out "Woe unto Jerusalem" yet Josephus remembered him in his book but Jesus Christ who should have had many books called Gospels and Pauline Epistles written about him and that he PREDICTED the Fall of the Temple is nowhere found in non-apologetic sources.

Josephus lived in Galilee and wrote "Antiquities of the Jews" c 93/94 CE.

And further, Josephus claimed Vespasian was the Predicted Messianic ruler and ROMAN writers did mention Vespasian.

Wars of the Jews" 6.5.4 Suetonius "Life of Vespasian"Roman writers did mention Vespasian who Josephus claimed was the PREDICTED Messianic ruler.

J-D

And you can say your evidence is sufficient no matter how little you have.I don't know what claims you think I've made.The fact that Josephus mentioned a few people is not evidence of what other people he 'should have' mentioned.There is nothing surprising about Roman writers mentioning Roman emperors, and it's not evidence of who else they 'should have' mentioned.

aa5874

Well, not mentioning Jesus does not help the HJ argument.

Jewish writers did NOT MENTION Jesus as a Messiah during the reign of Tiberius.

Roman writers did NOT MENTION Jesus as a Messiah during the reign of Tiberius.

The Jews expected a Messiah c 70 CE based on Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius.

Once Jesus did NOT EXIST during the reign of Tiberius then that is EXACTLY what is expected.

The MYTH Jesus theory is extremely good since it cannot ever be shown that Jesus Christ was mentioned by ANY NON-APOLOGETIC writer as a Messiah during the time of Tiberius and IT CAN BE SHOWN that the Gospels contain stories about Jesus that cannot be historically accurate and depict him as a PHANTOM.

J-D

That depends on what you mean, in this context, by 'the HJ argument' and the 'MYTH Jesus theory'.