mikem

Thankyou I will. I have been reading other threads on the general issue of NT historicity, and I have come to the conclusion that I need to do a good deal more reading on this than hitherto, and I thought that I had read plenty! I think my new year's resolution is to really get to grips with Josephus, and not just the Jesus stuff. He is fascinating in his own right (write?) isn't he? I I am thoroughly enjoying this site though. Happy New Year to you.

Vorkosigan

Thanks! I make the same resolution about Josephus every ten minutes. Happy New Year back at ya!

Michael

RUmike

From NT scholar Mahlon Smith on the subject of blasphemy:

mikem

Actually, having read Earl Docherty's Jesus Puzzle in it's entirety, apart from supplementary articles, I would now say that it it is downright impossible.
I have yet to read the supplementary articles, and I will be interested to see how he justifies dismissal of Jesus references in Josephus. I find Docherty's view persuasive, however it only takes one undisputed extratestamental reference to our Jesus to falsify his paradigm. Of course if he is right, then no such reference could possibly exist.

Meanwhile... the temple scene. You win. I have been reading an article (with pictures) about Herod's temple. (www.bible-history.com) The roman fortress was at the NW corner of the temple, linked to the Court of Gentiles by a 60 metre tunnel. From the fortress ramparts they had a good view of the temple. If anyone had done what Jesus is described as doing in the temple, he would have had to have been in and out of there pretty fast I think. That's not the impression given in the gospels. That demo. must have had to have lasted some time. Had the event happened, I think the culprit would have been arrested pretty quickly, so no more leisurely sauntering around the temple for the rest of the week.

Amaleq13

Yes it does. I'm not sure where I obtained that bit of apparent misinformation.

Then we agree though, to be clear, I do not accept Doherty's entire thesis nor am I actually a mythicist. I'm more of an agnostic.

Interpolations. Frankly, it is annoying as hell that we know the passage has been tampered with but we have no clue whether there was ever anything there about Jesus in the first place. The second reference, though widely accepted by scholars, has a rather unique structure for Josephus as well as containing an apparently unique use of "Christ". IMO that is two too many unique things for such a pivotal sentence and I am reluctant to accept it as reliably Josephan.

Vorkosigan

It also already contains a "jesus" too. IMHO the passage never referred to the man from Nazara, but instead explained how Jesus Damnaeus got to be the high priest: the high priest attempted to whack his brother and some friends, and the public got upset with official high-handedness. The passage does not even say whether "James" was actually killed.

Michael

Amaleq13

An excellent point that, for some reason, I keep forgetting.

Richard Carrier expresses the same opinion in this post:

In contrast, the "lack of perspective" I see is that none of the commentators seem to grasp the relevance of book technology to the problem (e.g. a brief paragraph would be mandated by the space available for adding interpolated material--since scrolls had to come in fixed lengths, and one "book," which we call a "chapter," consumed one scroll, usually with considerable economy, leaving very little room for an interpolator to add material), and as to the other reference (James), none seem to have any experience with accidental scribal interpolation, of which this seems an obvious example (the actual intended "Jesus" here is clearly Jesus bar Damnaeus, mentioned a few lines later, since that is the only interpretation that makes any sense of why Josephus is reporting this story in an extended account of the succession of the priesthood, e.g. he mentions the execution of James to explain why the Roman punishment for this crime was to depose Ananus who killed him and install in his place the surviving brother of the man he unjustly killed). At any rate, I have significant experience with both phenomena (I have studied textual errors and interpolations in other texts for years), and I can say from experience that these two passages look like textbook cases to me.

Vorkosigan

Good spot, Amaleq. Thanks for the reference.

Michael

mikem

Well, I'm not a mythicist either, at least not yet. I too have some reservations about aspects of Doherty's thesis. He has provided a new paradigm for interpreting the "gospel problem", and it is an impressive one. I have problems with his neoplatonic interpretation of Paul, although the passages he cites do lend themselves to that kind of interpretation. There are others though that I cannot see in that light at all, but this is not the appropriate thread for that, so I may be tempted to start a new one.

GakuseiDon

A nitpick: Neoplatonism is a product of the Third Century. Paul's beliefs were influenced by Middle Platonism. Doherty has proposed that part of Middle Platonists' beliefs included one of "a sub-lunar realm separate to but overlapping our own reality" in which 'fleshy' events can occur.

Unfortunately there is simply no evidence for this - Doherty confuses Plutarch's allegorical approach with Middle Platonistic cosmology, for example. Paul's use of terminology makes it impossible that Christ was incarnated anywhere else on earth. I regard this as conclusive evidence which refutes Doherty's thesis.