spin

Earl,

I gave a condensed version of the issue above:

While we are here, I may as well say how I think the interpolation got there. Origen, working from Hegesippus who gave Origen the idea that the fall of Jerusalem was related to the death of James, wrote his James material (Eusebius quotes the stuff in EH 2.23), confusing Hegesippus with Josephus (not uncommon in antiquity). A scribe finding αδελφος Ιησου λεγομενου χριστου missing Josephus "re"-inserted it in AJ 20.200, giving us the marked order not found in Origen.

And I hope you don't mind a long version I provided elsewhere (slightly edited):

[t2]Origen writes of the death of James three times. The following is the most elaborate.

Contra Celsus 1.47.

I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite.

Origen indicates the source of his reference as being in the 18th book of AJ, which is correct along with the indications of John as found in the book.

Now this writer {Josephus}, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ,...

Origen comments on Josephus's lack of belief.

...in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple,...

Origen describes the purpose of the passage, which is certainly not the purpose of the passage in AJ 20.200, a narrative about the undoing of Ananus.

...whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet,...

Origen corrects the idea that he mistakenly believes is that of Josephus.

...says nevertheless--being, although against his will, not far from the truth--that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),--...

Origen wrongly claims that Josephus attributes the disasters to the death of James the Just. In his other major book, the Jewish War, Josephus explains that the fall of Jerusalem was owing to the death of Ananus.(BJ 4.318)

Tucked away in all this musing and wrong attribution to Josephus is the phrase, "brother of Jesus called christ", which modern pundits claim is derived from AJ 20.200, which talks of "the brother of Jesus called christ named James" and it is in fact contained therein, but note the full phrase of Origen, "James the Just, a brother of Jesus called christ", which is not derived from the phrase in AJ 20.200, though it makes for the more natural expression of the idea. The first version of this material came in Origen's commentary on Matthew, the gospel containing the phrase "Jesus called christ" three times. Add that to Origen's understanding of "James the brother of the lord" and the combination reflects Origen's first phrase, to which he later adds "the Just".

...the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice....

Origen claims this although there is no indication to suggest this in the text of AJ 20.200.

...Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine....

Origen again is inserting his own ideas, this time undercutting any biological connection between Jesus and James, obviously for ideological purposes.

...If, then, he says that it was on account of James that the desolation of Jerusalem was made to overtake the Jews, how should it not be more in accordance with reason to say that it happened on account (of the death) of Jesus Christ, of whose divinity so many Churches are witnesses, composed of those who have been convened from a flood of sins, and who have joined themselves to the Creator, and who refer all their actions to His good pleasure.

In the end nothing that Origen wrote in this passage can be seen to be derived from AJ 20.200.

Here is Origen's Commentary on Matthew 10.17:

But James is this one whom Paul says that he saw in the epistle to the Galatians, saying: But I did not see any of the other apostles except James the brother of the Lord....

Origen cites Paul's phrase in Gal 1:19

...And in such a way among the people did this James shine for his justice that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the Jewish Antiquities in twenty books, wishing to demonstrate the cause why the people suffered such great things that even the temple was razed down, said that these things came to pass against them in accordance with the ire of God on account of the things which were dared by them against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ....

Plainly once again Origen is not dealing with the material in AJ 20.200.

Having here already used "James the brother of the Lord", Origen repeats it again, substituting the phrase from Mt 1:16, "Jesus called christ" for "the lord".

...And the wondrous thing is that, although he did not accept our Jesus to be Christ, he yet testified that the justice of James was not at all small; and he says that even the people supposed they had suffered these things on account of James.

As it is clear that the story of the death of James is not derived from AJ 20.200, where did it come from? It's found in a text by Hegesippus, preserved by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History 2.23. The account starts:

James, the brother of the Lord, succeeded to the government of the Church in conjunction with the apostles.[8] He has been called the Just by all from the time of our Saviour to the present day;...

Hegesippus also connects James to Paul's phrase. After describing the death of James, Hegesippus concludes:

...He became a true witness, both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ. And immediately Vespasian besieged them.

Here we have Hegesippus providing the material for Origen's phrase "James the brother of Jesus called christ". Hegesippus also places the siege of Jerusalem immediately on the death of James, allowing Origen to make the causal connection from Hegesippus.

On the name Hegesippus, a statement found of all places in the Catholic Encyclopedia regarding Pseudo-Hegesippus is useful:

In the manuscripts of the work "Iosippus" appears quite regularly for "Josephus". From Iosippus an unintelligent reviser derived Hegesippus, which name, therefore, is merely that of the original author, ignorantly transcribed.

or from here (originally the Encyclopaedia Britannica):

The name Hegesippus itself appears to be a corruption of Josephus, through the stages 'Idssipros, Iosippus, Egesippus, Hegesippus

or the name of a reference text from the same source

De Hegesippo, qui dicitur, Josephi interprete
"Of Hegesippus, which is said and interpreted Josephus"

As Hegesippus seems much closer to Origen's content, he is a much more likely candidate for the source of Origen's ideas. And Origen has just, as others have done, confused the name Hegesippus with Josephus.

After citing the Hegesippus material Eusebius continues:

James was so admirable a man and so celebrated among all for his justice, that the more sensible even of the Jews were of the opinion that this was the cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which happened to them immediately after his martyrdom for no other reason than their daring act against him. Josephus, at least, has not hesitated to testify this in his writings, where he says, "These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, brother of Jesus, called Christ. For the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man."

This last section is none other than a citation of Origen in the first passage presented here, Contra Celsus 1.47, which Eusebius apparently has merely taken as Origen citing Josephus, yet Eusebius then proceeds to cite AJ 20.200, which he specifically references ("the twentieth book of his Antiquities"), as a separate source, unable to see as modern commentators claim that the Origen passage comes from AJ 20.200.

As to the phrase now found in AJ 20.200, "the brother of Jesus called christ named James", the normal word order for the introductory description of a person is of the form "Bill the son of Stan", as can be seen in Origen's "James the brother of Jesus". The word order "the brother of Jesus named James" is not the normal word order and reflects a change for well known reasons, ie when the relation (here Jesus) has either 1) just been mentioned or 2) is a well-known figure found elsewhere in his text. The word order in "the brother of Jesus called christ named James" is unaccounted for from the context in which it was found. The oft cited passage from Origen doesn't support the word order. We also know that AJ was an apology for the Jews and Josephus was a believer in the Jewish religion, so this one reference to "christ" seems unlikely from his pen, especially as all other possible references to "christ" in the LXX have not been included in AJ and all possible candidates to the title, including his own candidate Vespasian, are never referred to as "christ". The only place in AJ to mention "christ" is here in a phrase that has unaccountable word order.

The evidence points against Josephus ever referring to James as "the brother of Jesus called christ", though a scribe remembering the passage from Origen might might have wondered when he found AJ 20.200, already with something like ανηρ Ιακωβος ονομα και τινας ετερους, why the reference had been omitted and put the reference in the margin of AJ 20.200. This would explain the odd word order, when a later scribe (if not the same) decided to "reinsert" the omissus and "a man named James and certain others" became "the brother of Jesus called christ named James and certain others". The word order didn't matter to the christian scribe, for Jesus was more important than James anyway, as Origen himself indicated, and there was no reason to "re"-insert the fact that James was surnamed "the Just".

Origen apparently got his story of James from Hegesippus, who he confused for Josephus, and Origen's phrase "brother of Jesus called christ" then crept into AJ 20.200 via the margin.[/t2]
I know the theory that the Jesus in "the brother of Jesus" supposedly refers to Jesus son of Damneus, but this reference in 20.203 is where the son of Damneus is introduced, undercutting the possibility that the earlier reference was also to the son of Damneus. One would also expect this Jesus's epithet earlier to have been not "called christ", but "the son of Damneus".

I think the process explained above

Hegesippus

|
V

Origen

|
V

Josephus

explains what we see in our sources with the important assistance of Eusebius. Everything is above board. There is no skullduggery behind the developments, just simple steps and a few wrong assumptions--unlike with the TF.

Have I covered all the bases?

Iskander

It is an absurd notion indeed. It is an absurd and malignant notion.


Roger Viklunds blogg has a full discussion on this subject.


http://rogerviklund.wordpress.com/20...quities-20200/

Vorkosigan

This theory makes the most sense to me, especially in combination with what you just wrote above. The scribe reads text of Jos. and says 'Dang it, got the wrong James' and then corrects 'son of Damnaeus.' And the rest is history....

Will Wiley

All you have done is cherry picked a few examples which suit your case.
And of course if found to be wrong you left your self the handy escape hatch that it was just an informal search.

If you want to make make a case for interpolation involving the word order you'll need to do better.
Off you go, get to it!

Spin: I found an interpolation that fit's with my bias's
Man A: How can you tell?
Spin: I did an informal search and found some things I can use.
Man A: Don't you really need to be more rigorous?
Spin: No! I already found some evidence I can use, why go looking for something that might cause me problems.

LegionOnomaMoi

Before I get to responding to what others have said since my last post, I figured it might be best to simply detail the results of some research I did today. A lot on the work on Josephus in general and on Josephus' passages which relate in some way to the NT date back to the turn of the century and earlier. Most of what I have read, on the other hand, has been work since then. So I took the time today to read more of those "forgotten" or now simply cited in lists of those who have dealt with the topic. For the most part, there was nothing much new. However, there were a few items of not, the most important of which I will refer to here.

Doherty, in "Neither God nor Man" (p. 583) writes, "If Josephus were merely looking for some quick way to identify this Jesus for his readers, one of many by that name in his chronicle, he would have had a much easier and less charged way to do so, less problematic for himself. He would simply have had to say, "the one crucified by Pilate."

Doherty gives no endnote or in-text citation for this idea, but (whether he knows this or not; I would be suprised if he didn't) it is not his, or at least has been proposed before. Solomon Zeitlin, in 1928, wrote a published a paper in The Jewish review, "The Christ Passage in Josephus". On page 235, he writes that Josephus, "where he says 'James the brother of Christ,' would have said that 'this is the Christ who was crucified by Pilate'"
. (italics in original).

In response to this, Robert Eisler published a paper in the same journal "Flavius Josephus on Jesus called Christ" (1930). Interestingly enough, he agrees with Zeitlin (and therefore Doherty) to a point, stating that Zeitlin's argument "is not in itself a bad observation. I have no doubt that according to Josephus' or rather his secretary's stylistic havits we ought indeed to expect such a cross-reference to a previous mention of Jesus." (p. 22)

However, he continues "But what, if this cross-reference was not so harmless as Zeitlin would postulate it? What, if it did not so much recall what Jesus suffered, as what he did under Pilate? What if the original text of Josephus spoke of 'James the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, who under Pilate had stirred up the masses to rebellion and prevented them from paying the taxes?' Would the censor have tolerated this clause? Would a Christian copyist have copied it slavishly? To me it seems evident that although the text-if genuine- must have offered such a cross-reference, such an anti-Christian sentence could not have survived because our standard text has been transmitted by Christian scribes and expurgated by Christian revisors." (same page).

I find both arguments (Zeitlin's and Eisler's) problematic for a few reasons, but what interests me most is the fact that Eisler's argument is central to many components of various mythicist arguments. It takes so little for any early passage referring to Jesus or Christ outside of the NT to be considered an interpolation or corruption. Yet Eisler's response to Zeitlin (and therefore Doherty) uses this same strategy to explain what Doherty claims should be there if the passage were genuine. Just as Christians added, so did they cut. If the line in question identified Jesus more explicitly, it may very well have done so in a way Christian scribes would have altered to be more palatable.

There is, however, a problem (actually more than one, but this one is more interesting than others) with both Zeitlin's and Eisler's position about what should be there. As Eisler states in a sidenote, it isn't really what we would expect Josephus to say, but rather his secretary. Just what components of his own work Josephus is responsible for has been the subject of study for a very long time. In 1939, G. C. Richards' published a paper (The Classical Quarterly) "The Composition of Josephus' Antiquities". His article is concerned with finding portions of AJ (and at times other work by Josephus) which we can be quite sure, fairly sure, or are possibly written by Josephus himself using stylistic, phrasal, syntactic, and lexical analysis. Most of the article is irrelevent, but what is interesting is that at the end of his introduction to the question/problem, Richards asks, "Can we earmark any portion as written entirely by J. [Josephus] without any assistance?" Although for much of the rest of the article, various places throughout the work are examined, Richards immediately follows the question quoted above by answering in the affirmative for the entirety of book XX (in which the reference to James is). Whether Richards is correct or not is actually less important than his method for deciding that book XX and the other portions he finds are likely the work of Josephus alone: "any unclassical or unliterary greek" and unusual/idiomatic usage, phrases, or lexemes.

This is interesting first simply because it supports something I've been arguing all along: Josephus' style is not regular and any argument about how a particular line should look from a stylistic or syntactical (or even narrative) point of view is inherently problematic. However, it is also noteworthy because it speaks to exactly what Zeitlin and Reisler say we should expect in AJ 20.200 and why: we should expect a reference to crucifixion under Pilate because looking at Josephus' secretary's style (as relevant here) such a reference would be typical of them. Yet according to Richards, Josephus' secretary (or secretaries) did not write 20.200, or book 20 at all. If Richards is correct, than the basis for Zeitlin and Eisler's argument concerning what ought to be in 20.200 falls apart. If he is wrong, that still leaves us with the a book containing numerous oddities of a wide variety (including the double conclusion).


Finally, there is the more recent (1994) paper published in The Jewish Quarterly Review by Tal Ilan and J. J. Price: "Seven Onomastic Problems in Josephus' 'Bellum Judaicum'". The article focuses on specific (obviously, given the title) problems in Josephus' works which involve names or how he refers to people. However, the authors also note in their introduction that problems/inconsistencies/errors/mistranslations/etc. with "names, places, and dates" abound in Josephus. For example, Josephus (or his assistants) seem to have confused nicknames and patronymics. In fact, "Josephus havitually miscopied or mistranscribed lists of names, or neglected to coordinate a person's first appearence in the text with the presentation of his full personal details". I already addressed this problem with Josephus and introductions/identifications by (among other things) referencing Cohen's work. However, the work by Ilan and Price here is more detailed and even more relevant. For example, the authors address the problems (and suggest 3 possible solutions) for the Jesus of BJ 2.599 and that of BJ 2.566. They explicitly state that "Josephus has long frustrated scholars not only by his contradictions and inconsistencies in his narratives but also his ommissions."

They also note (with Cohen) the introduction of characters who have been introduced before, specifically a "certain Gorion ben Joseph" who in BJ 4.159 "is introudced by his full name and a description, suggesting that the reader had not encountered him before." However, it also seems as if this is the same individual Josephus calls Joseph ben Gorion in BJ 2.563. As the authors note, opinions are divided on this matter, including whether or not they are the same. Also of note is that in BJ 4.358 Gorion is mentioned again, where we are informed of his murder. Yet, as Ilan and Price note, we have an "absence of a cross-reference" to Gorion ben Joseph which "is a bit strange."

Once more, we do not find what we "expect" to find in Josephus when it comes to characters and their introductions and identifications.

As the problems not just with Josephan syntax and lexical usage but specifically with his methods of referring to, identifying, and introducing people are so frequent in his work, this again makes the "problem" of AJ 20.200 a typical Josephan phenomenon. We simply too often do not find what we would "expect" when it comes to Josephus' methods of referring to individuals, so on what grounds should we single out any "problems" with what we should "expect" to find in AJ 20.200?

Will Wiley

So despite completely ignoring the scholarly references (apprently not even bothering to look at them), you are actually claiming that Josephus has some hard and fast rules that he always applies.

Have you actually done the work here and checked this or are we just supposed to take your word for it.
You just claimed that here that "People around here know that I don't want them to take my word for anything", so have you done the work or not?
Are we just supposed to take your work for it?

1.Does Josephus always use that work order?
2.Are the exceptions always "marked" even though you wont define what "marked" even means (presumably it's a different word order to the order you assert is "normal".

LegionOnomaMoi

To attempt to avoid another charge of "text walling" (can one use that in the participial/gerund form?) I'm going to lay out how I will proceed in this post here, so that it can be more easily followed.

First, I address the general issue of how Josephus orders his words when he uses a "by name X"-type of identification (something I have already done, but I provide more examples here).

Then I will address Spin's claim that this doesn't happen when we have a familial relation, by giving two counter-examples in which an individual is identified with a "by name X"-type of construction as well as a kinship relation.

I then get into Spin's claim about "marked" (unusual word order) in AJ 20.200 by first listing three problems (in, I hope, a clear and consise way) with his analysis of AJ 20.200 compared with "similar" examples of "introductions" and the "usual" word order for these.

This is followed by a more in-depth look at how Spin's "usual word order" (and therefore his "markedness" argument about 20.200) applies only to patronymics (and even here there are irregularities), not to kin identifiers or identifiers in general.


Yet, while this is generally true when Josephus relies patronymics or similar methods, it is not true when he uses the phrase "by name X" or "whose name was X". In such situations, e.g., Doris in BJ 1.432, Eurycles in BJ 1.513, Judas in 2.118 (who, as Cohen notes on p.111 where he discusses Josephus' tendency to introduce people as if he hadn't already, is "introduced twice"), Castor in BJ 5.317, the examples Spin gives, and many others.

Of particular interest are the rare times when Josephus combines a kin identifier with "by name X" or "whose name was X". For example, in BJ 6.387, Josephus identifies a certain Jesus son of Thebuthus. He begins "in those days" (or, less literally, "in that time"), and continues "[there] was one of the priests, boy of Thebuthus, Jesus by name" (in Greek, τις Θεβουθεῖ παῖς Ἰησοῦς ὄνομα). Here (as in AJ 20.200), the relationship to Thebuthus comes first, followed by the "by name" formula (although without the dative). Also of note is that this Thebuthus, who comes first, is not named before or again in BJ or elsewhere, yet his name comes first.

We find much the same in BJ 5.474 with a certain Chagiras, who is introduced with the preposed reference modifier Ἀδιαβηνός τις υἱὸς Ναβαταίου τοὔνομα κληθεὶς ἀπὸ τῆς τύχης Kεἀγίρας (lit. "from Adiabene a certain son of Nabateus the name, being designated from his fortune, Chagiras"). Here, both the place the identified individual is from and his kinship relation precede the name of the identified individual. And here again, this "Nabateus" is not named elsewhere.

In these two examples, we lack the "fame" Spin speak's of when a kin is placed first, along with the "already introduced" hypothesis he's so adamently claimed is accurate.

Now, as Spin notes, in AJ 20.200, we find both the "by name" type of intro for James, as well as his relation:
It is true that most of the references to individuals identified by onoma or some phrase containing some form of onoma and the individual's name do not also have familial references. However, using this as an argument for corruption/interpolation in AJ 20.200 is flawed for several reasons:

1) There are indeed times in Josephus' works where he does use "by name X" or something like this AND a familial connection (see above). Moreover, in the two times my "informal search" uncovered, the familial connection was given BEFORE the name (like other reference modifiers Josephus uses when he identifies someone using the "by name X" method)
2) As I noted in some detail in my last post, when it comes to names, Josephus' methods are often sloppy, irregular, unexpected, etc. So even if AJ 20.200 were the only time that we found a preposed reference modifier in a "by name"-type identification which included a kinship relation, such an irregularity is to be expected given Josephus' problematic methods of referring to individuals.
3) Quite apart from the specific issues with Josephus' methods of referring to individuals, there are the oddities of his Greek and the novelties of his Greek, as detailed in my last posts. Why should we expect regularity, especially if Richards is correct about the Josephan hand of book 20?

Here again you use "marked" word order without reference to the linguistic model or research you are using. As much as I appreciate the definition and the more detailed analysis of wording, "marked" as used in linguistic theory in the way you describe has not only changed over the past ~50 years, there are quite different ways in which markedness is identified/precisely defined in various models of grammar or linguistic approaches/models/theories. I can't really judge the veracity of your application without knowing whose work you are relying on.

More importantly, what "usual word order"? As I have shown through reference to scholars from recent analyses to those from nearly 100 years ago, Josephus not only used others to write (and thus his work, even without scribal alterations, doesn't reflect the Greek of a single individual), he was frequently irregular, and especially so when it comes to identifying individuals. The fact is that quite rarely in Josephus is an individual identified solely by a brother, as this is not the typical method (i.e., not a patronymic) of kin identification. The problem with your statement:
is that familial connections are not generally what is important, but rather patronymics. When Josephus doesn't know who the father is, then he uses methods like place of origin, nickname, occupation, or another kin relationship (as he does in AJ 20.200). As Mason notes (see my earlier post), this appears to be how James was known: the brother of Jesus. Josephus' construction echoes what we find elsewhere. Because we aren't dealing with a patronymic, your application of word order doesn't apply. There simply isn't a regular way Josephus identifies people if he isn't using a patronymic (and even then, we often find irregularities).


I only started to use "re-introduce" for clarification. And it isn't me who has "insisted" that it doesn't matter if the person has already been introduced, but those I relied on (particularly Cohen, whose work I was already quite familiar with, whereas the article on onomastic problems in Josephus I only read recently). The simple fact is that Josephus too often doesn't make the distinction you refer to, and instead introduces people he has already introduced, without any difference. When he uses patronymics, he generally puts the name of the son first, regardless of whether he has introduced the person before. The formula "X, the son of Y" is typically used (or something close to it; sometimes it is "boy" instead or other small differences are found) regardless of whether the person has been mentioned before or the number of times he has been mentioned. Your "rule" about word order which you apply to AJ 20.200 and thereby determine it is "marked" relates to patronymics. The phrase "brother of X" is only used a handful of times in Josephus. The word order we find in AJ 20.200 is explained perfectly by the fact that it is not a patronymic and uses the "by name X"-type of identification (where the reference modifier is usually preposed). When it comes to identification without patronymics, there is nothing close to "simple, usual word order" you casually throw out there along with "marked."


"Throughout his writings?" Then surely you will be able to find plenty of examples of non-patronymic introductions in which you this "simple word order" exists. So let's see them.





And there's your problem. You state "father or brother" but in reality your "simple, usual word order" only applies to "father" because it is the word order typical of a patronymic. When an introduction doesn't use a patronymic, we loose your "simple, usual word order". In fact, when we find the "by name X"-type of identification, it's similar to what we find in AJ 20.200.

aa5874

It is just fascinating how some posters can go through the same flawed arguments day after day knowing in advance that they will accomplish nothing with their so-called "methodologies".

It should be obvious that the authenticity of Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 cannot be resolved based on "word order".

In any event, The claim that Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 is authentic CANNOT help the HJ argument because there is ZERO historical or biographical data about Jesus and his supposed brother James.

When was Jesus the brother of James born in Antiquities???

Who were the parents of Jesus the brother of James in Antiquities??

Is Jesus the brother of James dead in Antiquities??

When did Jesus the brother of the James die in Antiquities???

Where did Jesus the brother of James live in Antiquities???

Was James an Apostle in Antiquities???

It is just beyond all reason that a MERE phrase that contains NOTHING about an Obscure preacher from Nazareth is used to argue biographical details of an HJ.

HJers don't seem to understand that they come across as people who have lost all rational.

The authenticity of a phrase without biographical details is completely useless especial when "Jesus was called Christ" which is the EXACTLY CONTRARY to an Obscure preacher man.

The ONLY detail in the Phrase "Jesus called Christ", authentic or not, CONTRADICTS the biography of HJ.


Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1Something is radically wrong. The HJ argument is just absurd.

But, their absurdity does NOT end. They have NEVER established when any book of the Canon was composed.

HJers PRESUME the Pauline writings were composed before Antiquities of the Jews when there is ZERO dated evidence for such a presumption.

Please, HJers need to take a time out and reconsider their position because personally I find the HJ argument completely worthless, baseless, and hopelessly flawed.

HJers will NEVER be able to show that Jesus called Christ in Antiquities was an OBSCURE preacherman from Nazareth, that his brother was an Apostle and that the Pauline writings were composed before 70 CE.

LegionOnomaMoi

Sort of like you do about probability theory?

aa5874

Again you are a master of rhetoric and diversions. You need to get serious. I can see right through you.

You seem incapable of understanding that we can see what you are attempting to do.

Let us do history.

When were the Pauline writings composed??? The letters themselves do NOT state when they were written and NO letters of Paul has been found and dated to the anytime in the 1st century.

Presumptions about Paul are WORTHLESS.

HJers have been BASKING in their PRESUMPTIONS far too long.