sotto voce

Not really. When the Jewish High Priest wanted to complain to the Romans about Paul, he could hardly tell them that Paul followed his own Messiah. He had a lawyer in tow, but it's doubtful that he needed legal advice on that particular point.

Yes, it's true that present day Jews refer to Jesus' followers as Christians, but then people don't think so straight these days.

Solo

Hi Andrew,
this is an unconvincing argument, I am afraid. What Ant 20.9's "him called Christ" and the "tribe of Christians" in the TF assume as "background knowledge" is the recognition of "Christ" (hence "Christians") as a family name or a restricted cognomen by which to identify an individual (and the cult in his name). IIUC "Christ" for Josephus was a Jewish royal epithet.

Best,
Jiri

aa5874

Ehrman is so illogical and seem to have forgotten that Antiquities of the Jews was WRITTEN c 93 CE AFTER the Gospels and the Pauline letters should have been ALREADY composed where Paul called Jesus the CHRST over 300 TIMES.

Ehrman seems to have forgotten that Paul and the Apostles should have ALREADY preached that Jesus was Christ in ROME, and the Roman Empire LONG LONG BEFORE Josephus wrote in 93 CE.

Ehrman seems to have forgotten the History of Paul and the Apostles who supposedly preach Jesus was Christ since the Day of Pentecost or during the reign of King Areatas 37-41 CE.

Ehrman seems to have forgotten that Josephus was supposed to be a Contemporary of the Apostles and Paul.

Ehrman have forgotten his own history of the Christians.

Christians were supposedly EXECUTED under NERO--25 years BEFORE Antiquities was written.

It is just ABSURD that Christians were puzzled as claimed by Ehrman.

Ehrman is ILLOGICAL and he FORGOT his own history of the Christians.

spin

The relationship is a complex one. The Jews took a Greek verb χριω equivalent to mem-shin-chet ("anoint") and created an adjective meant to mean "messiah", but to someone outside the Semitic culture it meant "unguent, oil, that which is smeared".

Josephus was writing to a Roman audience who knew nothing about Semitic traditions other than what Josephus himself explains and he says nothing about the term "χριστος".

Actually, no it's not. It's a Latin word, given that Christus was borrowed from Greek into Latin and -ian- is a Latin (not Greek) suffix, so "christian" is a Latin construction. There were plenty of suffixes Greeks could use to do the job -hn- (gadarhnos), -ai- (xettaios), -ith- (ammaniths), but a Latin suffix was what was used. It's a Latin word borrowed by the Greek.

Nobody can say, but the Peshitta Acts 11:26 has "christian" transliterated into Syriac Aramaic.

Well, he was called messiah (anointed) in Isa 45:1, which got later translated into Greek as "χριστος". Doesn't help with "christian".

aa5874

Please, let us NOT be going over the same Debunked arguments from Ehrman.

He does NOT even know the history of Christianity based on his own claims.

The Roman Empire should have been Christianized by Paul, the disciples and the Apostles when Josephus was a TODDLER, in "diapers".

The City of Galilee, where Josephus, the Disciples and Jesus Lived, should have Christians WHILE Josephus was in Galilee and by the time Josepus went to Rome around c 62 CE.

In Acts of the Apostles, it is claimed Paul attempted to Convert Agrippa to Christianity so it is just a LOAD of BS that Christians would be puzzled by Josephus in 93 CE if Judea, Jerusalem, Galilee, Rome, Corinth, the region of Galatia, Thessalonica and other parts of the Roman Empire already had Christians who believed in Jesus Christ.

Ehrman's AD HOC absurdities will be EXPOSED. Ehrman is illogical.

MrMacSon

There is discussion about whether the term Nasarene or similar stems from Isaiah 11:1 (NASB95) -

In Hebrew, the word for "branch" is netzer, and it has been proposed that Nasarene stems from that -

in the Hebrew idiom it is written thus

Shafeesthoughts

From a Muslim perspective Nasarene comes from an incident mentioned in the Qur'an where Jesus (as), known to us as Nabi Isa (as- the honorific "Peace be upon him") says to his disciples (the Hawireoon) "Who will be the helpers of GOD?" lit "Nasr-Ullah" most likely both in Aramaic and Arabic. And the community of believers affirm that.

sotto voce

They were there.

Cege

I thought there were no authentic versions of Josephus references to the Jesus Christ of the biblical gospels, Acts, and letters???

la70119

And his Roman audience would be scratching their heads, "Jesus the so-called smeared one?" Unless that place were ALREADY overrun by Christians. The Greek φῦλον could also mean "swarm."

Almost exactly, I might add.

http://www.peshitta.org/ (for those who don't know Syriac, in left hand menu select: tools, lexicon; in the enter search box type in the english word "christian" and hit "search." You can also use the menu to look up Acts 11:26.)