GakuseiDon

The problem with this line of thinking is that it doesn't take into account how Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels, as well as how later critics like Celsus viewed him. In the Gospels, the Pharisees are portrayed as seeing Jesus perform miracles, and not only did they not convert, they attacked him for it. Celsus didn't appear to have any doubts that Jesus performed miracles (though he called Jesus "a juggler") but again he didn't convert.

Unless Philo was trying to list the miracle workers of his time, it may be that he heard about Jesus but just didn't believe the stories, or believed the stories but like Celsus or the Pharisees portrayed in the Gospels, didn't believe that they showed Jesus as God.

Clivedurdle

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03490a.htm

At least one hundred and fifty years after the alleged time of Jesus, Celsus is a superb witness to this historical juggler.

What was that about a mission to Jupiter in 2001 and a computer called HAL?

GakuseiDon

It's not the witness to his historicity that I'm referring to here, but how Jesus was regarded in his own time (assuming he existed).

If Celsus had lived in Jesus day and met Jesus, would he have believed that Jesus was the Son of God and thus converted to the form of Judaism that Jesus was promoting?

Gamera

A result that requires one to claim (a) Paul never existed (which no sensible historian does) or (b) that all Pauls writings were hijacked and replaced by pseudo-Pauls, in one of the grandest conspiracies in history.

Toto

Hardly.

I assume that Malachi151 meant the Jesus of the Gospels, not the references to Jesus in Paul's letters. But even if he meant any Jesus referred to in the New Testament, it would take only a few additions to Paul's letters, if they had originally never referred to Jesus. Any even extensive additions to Paul's letters would not qualify as one of the grandest conspiracies in history.

andrewcriddle

The Historical John the Baptist was at least as significant a figure at the time as the Historical Jesus but he is not mentioned in any early sources apart from Josephus and the NT.

Andrew Criddle

Malachi151

Not at all. Paul never saw Jesus. One can very easily say that Paul was writing about something that he believed to be true, because he was told that it was so (though he claims it came from visions).

Malachi151

Which again has Jesus being an insignificant person. Philo wrote abotu minutia, he recorded the events of even common people in far off lands.

For Philo to HAVE heard about Jesus, but considered the topic not work writings about, would require that what he heard about him would have to have been only a minor account.

If a real Jesus existed, as described in the Gospels, then Philo would have heard enough about the fellow to have warrented at least one mention.

The "philosophy of Jesus" parallels the philosophy of Philo (coincidence ), so if someone existed, who was saying the same type of things that Philo was saying, getting follower, being persecuted, and then got killed for teaching the same types of idea that Philo held, then Philo would have written about it.

GakuseiDon

Why? What if he regarded Jesus as a sorceror or even a fraud? Celsus seemed to accept some of Jesus's miracles, but he didn't believe in Jesus as a Son of God. Why should Philo do the same?

Was Jesus killed for teaching the same types of ideas as Philo? The gospels imply he was killed for either blasphemy or turning over the money-changers' tables (assuming he did either).

Vivisector

I think this is much of the real issue; how much of an attention-getter was HJ? If you should be of the atheist persuasion (as am I), then it's not necessary to require HJ to be a changing-water-into-wine (he'd have been a hit at every party), dead-raising (ditto for funerals) type of fellow. Had he done all that's ascribed to him in the Gospels, there seems to be little doubt that he'd have attracted contemporary mention. In this sense, then, I agree with you that no Jesus of the type portrayed in the Gospels ever existed.

If we move past the straw man of the miracle-working Son of God, though, and ask whether HJ could have been more along the lines of the great/charismatic teacher model and still flown under the radar of most (especially pagan) historians, I think the answer is "yes." Andrew Criddle has noted that Philo didn't mention JtB, but is this anything approaching definitive proof that JtB didn't exist? I don't think so - it only says something about the sensitivity of Philo's personal "radar," which was different from, e.g., Josephus's.

Toto also made a great point, that contemporary (or near-contemporary) historians' unflattering references could have removed by Christian scribes who preserved their works. I think something along these lines happened with the TF, where a neutral or even unflattering reference to HJ was reworked into what we have now.

Arguments from silence are tricky things. It seems a very uncertain proposition for we who live two millennia removed to develop criteria for events' inclusion, retroject them onto ancient writers and to conclude against historicity based on the writers' non-inclusion.

To say this is to give much more credence to the gospels' representation of Jesus's philosophy than is warranted, I think.

Cheers,

V.