andrewcriddle

Philostratus (in the early 3rd century CE) wrote a (fictional) life of Apollonius of Tyana, not the other way around.

Beyond a few letters little of the works of Apollonius survive.

Andrew Criddle

Yellum Notnef

How do we know for certain that it's fictional?

aa5874

But, Josephus did write about Jesus, the madman. And this Jesus, the madman, was given more detail than the Jesus who was claimed to be seen alive after the third day and called the Christ.

Josephus gave the name of the father of this madman, there is no name given for the father, if he had one at all, of the Jesus who resurrected. The occupation and status in society of Jesus, the madman, were mentioned, yet there is nothing in the 'TF' for the Jesus who was raised from the dead. Events and words of the 'madman' are given in some detail, however there are no specific event or words of Jesus of the 'TF', except he was crucified and resurrected

In 'Wars of the Jews', Jesus, the madman, is declared to be mad by Albinus, the procurator, because he acted similar to the Jesus of the NT.

'Wars of tthe Jews' 6.5.3. ....."But what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebian and a husbandman, who four years before the war began, and at a time, when the city was in a very great peace and prosperity, came to the feast whereon it is our custom for eveyone to make tabernacles to God in the temple, began to say aloud,

"A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people"

This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say anything for himself, or anything peculiar to those that chastissed him but still went on with the same words which he cried before.

Hereupon upon our Rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whpped until his bones were laid bare yet he did not make any supplication for himself, or shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at the every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, Woe unto Jerusalem!"

And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? And whence he came? and why he uttered such words? he made no manner of reply to what he said but still did not leave off his melancholy ditty, till Albinus took him to be a madman.

The Jesus of the NT cannot be found in history.

Antipope Innocent II

By Hellenised Jews, for quite a while. The Jesus the later stories describe doesn't sound like a Hellenised Jew - he sounds particularly devout.

It's interesting that when something is unlikely or unreasonable MJers tend to use that as evidence its not historical. But when something is reasonable, they use that as evidence that it's not historical as well, since a fiction is meant to be reasonable to be believable. So it's damned if it is and damned if it ain't.

Yes, so you keep saying. Unfortuntely for you we're talking about ancient history here and, given the paucity and nature of our sources, we often (or even almost always) have to work on the basis of what seems most reasonable or more likely. Frustrating yes, but that's just the nature of the game. Those who like hard and fast facts and clear evidence should perhaps try physics or mathematics - they may be more to your taste.

You're rather fond of using forceful statements as though they have the power of argument, aren't you?

Actually, I have very good grounds for talking about hyperscepticism. As I've pointed out, the assumption that an historical figure lies behind many or even most legends and folkloric figures is a standard one. That's because we know that historical figures tend to attract legendary accretions over time; religious figures even more so and more rapidly.

So what reason do we have to abandon that standard assumption here?

We might have far more reason to do this in other cases. With Arthur, for example, we have no contemporary records of him at all. The first mention we get of him is in a poem from over 100 years after he was meant to have lived which mentions him once, in passing. The next reference gives a few details and dates from 400 years after his time. The next one comes 100 years later again. Then we get a whole lot of stories about him; all full of clearly legendary stuff about magical swords, talking dragons and faerie queens. Yet historians agree that there was a Fifth Century post-Roman warlord behind all these fragmentary references and knightly romances.

Beside Arthur, Jesus is as rock-solid historical as Winston Churchill. Which is why the overwhelming academic consensus is that he too existed. Apart from a small largely non-academic fringe (with ideaological axes to grind) who maintain a totally unwarranted level of scepticsm.

So you do agree with Doherty on this point. Thought so.

I'm familiar with the argument. I, and others, find it unconvincing. Leaving aside the fact that Paul repeatedly uses the formula "Jesus Christ our Lord" (kyrios = the Aramaic title for one's teacher mar), 1Cor 7:10 clearly refers to Jesus' reported teaching on divorce (Mark 10:5-12) so the "Lord" Paul refers to here is clearly Jesus. It takes some contrived contortions to pretend otherwise. Ditto for ignoring the clear meaning of Galatians 1:19, ignoring all the references to Jesus having a brother called James and pretending that "brother of the Lord" here means ... something else.

Yes, when all else fails, invoke interpolations.

Given that there are multiple references to Jesus having a brother called James and a reference to him as Jesus' brother in Josephus (wait - let me guess - another interpolation?) few historians have any trouble with working out what "the brother of the Lord" means. It means James was Jesus' brother. Only the tumbling controtionists of the JMer Flying Circus have any difficulty with this phrase. And that's only because its clear meaning doesn't fit their foregone conclusion.

Yep. So we do what we always do with such evidence and try to determine the most reasonable and likely explanation and origin for what we find in the texts.

Fragmentary evidence of a kind that requires us to deal in probabilities and what is reasonable. And in that process, Occam's Razor is not kind to the supposition-laden JMer position. Deal with it.

Demonstrate there was an Arthur? If you want definitive proof or "demonstrations" you're dabbling in the wrong dicipline. As I said, physics is down the hall. You might find that easier to deal with.

{*various bits of petty snideness and overt rudeness snipped for lack of content*}

If the sources we had about JFK were all in English but JFK was a Hebrew-speaking Jew in a Hebrew-speaking community then, yes, that would be a reasonable idea.

And so the Messianic tradition surrounding Joshua would be ... where exactly? We have plenty of information about the various Messianic expectations and traditions in the Intertestamental Period, so you should have no trouble finding the basis for your idea above. Over to you.

Content-free snide insult, but par for the course.

spin

Oooo, eee, "sounds particularly devout", eh? And the Jews of the diaspora weren't? Face it, you have no evidence to bolster your conjectures.

You're another one of those who build their stuff on conjecture. I am not a MJer. You are merely wasting your breath projecting your prejudices on me.

You're damned because you are evidenceless.

Refresh my memory: what ancient history?

I cannot help the fact that you know nothing about historical methodology.

Non sequitur seems to be one of the tools of your rhetoric.

As assumptions go that's another one.

Assumptions are not the central issue here. History is. Assumptions are not history.

You love changing the subject. Why don't you ever deal with the meat of the history you seem to be flirting around?

I'd say that Doherty agrees with me.

So you want to contradict Paul when he says that he didn't receive his gospel from man nor was he taught it. How then did Paul get his information about what Jesus is later said to have taught??

Read what is said, you'll see that it has nothing to do with Jesus. Paul gives a command, then emphasizes that it doesn't come from him, but from the lord.

And you are proving to be an exceptional contortionist.

You cannot help retrojecting later opinions on the matter into Paul and confusing the text.

Let's pretend interpolations didn't happen, eh? You'll happily stop using Matthew and Luke because they're Mark with lots of interpolations. Stop wasting your breath with old apologetic. If you want to know more look at the texts where kurios is certainly used as a substitute for "Jesus", start a new thread and tell me that they weren't interpolations. 1 Cor 2:8b, 6:14, 11:23-27: all in 1 Corinthians, all interpolations. And find me another example of kurios as a substitute for Jesus in the Pauline corpus.

You aren't dealing with what you were claiming to deal with. You are trying to argue for uniformity of christian literature when you have sufficient evidence for a lack of uniformity. At the same time you are trying to retroject later christian ideas into a text written by Paul at the beginning of christian literature. You don't do that and expect that your conclusions will have any meaning. You have no way of testing your claims.

I do get tired of this sort of thing. Read the archives, will you? Have you even looked at the issue of the James citation in Josephus??

Well, I guess you are showing your true colors, assumption laden crap, full of errors. You think because someone doesn't support your assumption of a historical Jesus that they must support a mythical Jesus. Well, hell, take the time out to tell me if you think that Ebion, the eponymous founder of the Ebionite movement according to Tertullian, Epiphanius and others, was either historical or mythical. Thrill me. Try. Did Ebion exist? Was Ebion a myth?

I've seen this sort of slipshod song and dance all too often from people who haven't taken the time to look into the evidence. You must admit you are so light on evidence in your posts.

License for conjecture.

Lack of evidence is not made up for by your conjectures.

Still blabbering on about JMism. This is endemic of your errors.

That would make sense, wouldn't it? I don't know if there was an Arthur or not. This is more your field -- conjecture.

Sorry, I didn't notice that this door said Apologetics 101. Historiography is also down the hall.

Pot looking for a kettle to blame.

More assumptions. Was the Jesus of the gospels a Hebrew speaking Jew?? There are a few tawdry examples of Aramaic attributed to Jesus, but at the same time there are Greek idioms and even indications of passing knowledge of Latin placed on the lips of Jesus.

You have this habit of jumping arguments in midstream. This is what I was responding to:

Both Yeshua and Iesous are rather odd names for a mythic being.

I complained about you clouding the issue with "mythical being" and then explained why Ihsous wouldn't have been a strange name for a messianic figure. You didn't seem to like that so you change onto the lack of a body of literature about Joshua. Try to stay on course, please.

Further straying.

As we weren't talking about deities per se, the notion in your statement comes out of thin air. We were dealing with a messiah called Jesus. All you were doing was trying to trivialize the situation for lack of an argument. If the truth is an insult to you, learn to wear it with dignity.


spin

Toto

Antipope: you say I don't think that this is a standard assumption among historians. I think that it is an assumption that a lot of people make, and these people think that there is a shadowy historical figure behind the Jesus legend, along with some historical figure behind Arthur, Hercules, etc. But no modern, careful historian is going to make that assumption without evidence.

And I challenge your idea that religious figures attract more legends that non-religious figures. We know that legends about Alexander were widespread, and that George Washington's life was refashioned shortly after his death into something more pious than it was by Parson Weems, and there are pages of urban legends about non-religious nobodies. Legends just happen. But there is no necessity that any truth lie behind any particular legend.

Antipope Innocent II

With Hercules it would certainly be an assumption without any real evidence. All we have about Hercules is legends with no indication of any real person even if one did exist. But with Arthur we have several brief references which are only semi-legendary (eg Nennius), though they are long after the fact, then we get stuff that is clearly legendary (but could have kernels of history in them). There the assumption is not without any foundation and is quite reasonable.

We get the same with Jesus. We are told by our sources that he existed. And these sources aren't 300 or 400 years later (as with Arthur), they are 40-70 years later - within living memory. We don't have anything like that for Hercules. We don't have anything like that for Arthur. So what reason do we have to decide that they are wrong about this quite ordinary claim and that he didn't exist at all?

Anyone can play the game of coming up with a way of dealing with the evidence that results in no historical Jesus at all if they try hard enough. But what reason do we have to try?

I can't see anything in the evidence that leads logically to that position. And I can see some strong motivations for some people to want to begin with that position and then work backwards. This seems to me to be what MJers (and whatever it is that our sneering friend Spin classifies himself as) are doing.

All true. And yes, I have no good reason to insist that religious figures are more likely to attract these stories, especially in the ancient world.

cajela

I'm completely lost as to why the name matters. Iesous, Jesus, Yeshua, Joshua - they're all the same AFAIK; why would anybody try to claim they weren't? And what would the point be?

I also really don't get the whole HJ vs MJ acrimony. One side says there probably was some wandering rabbi called Yeshua around whom the myths accreted, the other says that it was 100% myth from the get-go. Neither one is claiming that the biblical account is 100% true, prayes the lard!!1!. Both sides are atheists, or at least mostly they are on this board, which is the only place I read this stuff. Actual Christians usually reject both views, in favour of a real miracle working god-man. Why can't you guys have a civilised argument over the historical merits of the evidence? Won't somebody think of the lurkers!?

Antipope Innocent II

Beats me. I use "Yeshua" largely to differentiate the historical guy I'm talking about from the "Jesus" of the gospels. I also think it's most likely that this was the guy's name. Spin is objecting to this because, as far as I can make out, I'm assuming that this was the guy's name. As though I'm pretending it's anything other than an assumption. :huh:

He has a very strange idea about history that, in the absence of clear evidence, you simply can't make a judgement call on what seems most likely. This is bizarre, since the nature of ancient and medieval sources and evidence means historians do this all the time.

Indeed. I couldn't care less if Jesus/Yeshua existed or not. It matters about as much to me, as an atheist, as the question of whether, say, Apollonius of Tyana existed. I just happen to find the idea that there was a guy at the heart of the Jesus stories more convincing than the, to my mind, rather contrived arguments that he didn't.

But people like Spin seem to have a lot emotionally invested in the idea that Jesus/Yeshua didn't exist - as is clear from the sneering, abusive and at times slightly hysterical tone of his posts above. It seems to be very important to him that I understand that I am an idiot and that I am wrong and that my position is wrong and everything I think is wrong and that I have no grasp of historiography (despite having a degree in History - hmmmm ... ) etc etc.

It makes you wonder why this question is so important to him emotionally that it requires such scorn and bile. A detached and disinterested student of history doesn't indulge in such hysteria.

I'm certainly trying to. Toto seems capable of it, which is why I've switched to replying to him.

spin

With this criterion of reasonableness, how do you distinguish between fact and fiction? The material needs to be reasonable before any serious consideration. Reasonableness is a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. If by reasonableness you can distinguish between fact and fiction then you could show me wrong.

We don't have any contemporary documentation, so we don't have any evidence from the period. All we have is material from after the fact. There is no way to authenticate the content of that material. We don't know what that material was based on. We don't know who wrote it, when it was written, where, for which audience, or under what circumstances. Historical figures are based on different stuff.

There is no contemporary evidence. This is why you have to attack anyone who attempts to do solid historical research.

I guess you believe anything you read. A historian cannot afford to do so.

This is confused. I can see strong motivations for someone starting with what they believe and reconstructing the world to fit those beliefs, but the requirement of evidence beyond undated, unprovenanced texts certainly seems to be good methodology.

Where do you get "sneering" from? And what's your problem with the notion that there is more range than JMism and AHism? Answer my question about Ebion.


spin