youngalexander

I was merely commenting upon the fact that we are confronted by yet another unfortunate ambiguity. If Josephus had known about Joseph he could have dispensed with Jesus altogether.
James, son of Joseph the tekton.

Yet he doesn't, and so uses the adelphonymic; brother of Jesus.
But, who the hell is Jesus? Son of Joseph?? Well, that would not do at all would it? Both for Josephus (who doesn't know this) and for the xian interpolator. So we have;
...Jesus, who was called the Christ.:huh:

Putting on my 1st C Roman hat; what is a Christ?
[Note: according to Gooch's dad we are not allowed to refer to the TF.]
Where does Josephus explain what a Christ is? Would his Roman readers have the faintest notion? So who is this Jesus and how does he place James?

Might we not form the suspicion that James was originally referred to as 'The Brother of the Lord [ie. YHWH]' and some obliging xian scribe has clarified the passage by introducing Jesus?!

Malachi151

I just talked to Carrier and he said that he is currently working on a paper that aims to show that the Josephus quote in question "Jesus brother of James" is indeed an interpolation. So presumably this will go into a peer reviewed journal, and we will see what happens.

Ben C Smith

Could have, but in this case probably would not have, since of the two (Joseph and Jesus) Jesus was by far the more noteworthy. Josephus identifies Felix by his more famous brother Pallas in Antiquities 20.7.1; likewise, it makes sense for Josephus to identify James by his more famous brother, the one called Christ, in Antiquities 20.9.1 §200,

I doubt the average first century Roman had much of any idea what the name or title Christ actually meant. I doubt the average first century Roman cared what it meant. But the simple fact is that, when Christianity spread into the mainstream Roman world, its founder was referred to as Christ. Tacitus calls him Christ without dropping any hint that it was a title, not a personal name. So does Pliny. The Latin term Christianus, with that -ianus ending, meant followers of Christ (much like the modern political term Reaganites means followers of or adherents to Reagan). The average first century Roman, upon hearing the term Christianus, would probably be able to guess the name of the founder without much difficulty.

No, they would probably not know (nor care about) the elaborate Hebrew history behind that word. What they would know is that the founder of the cult of the Christians was called Christ. And that would certainly suffice to identify this Jesus. Josephus is saying: This is the Jesus whom you Roman readers of mine know better as Christ.

We know from Tacitus and Pliny, and can infer from Suetonius and Lucian, that the average Roman reader would know who Christ was, but I doubt the average Roman reader would have had any idea who the Lord was, if not Caesar.

I submit that there is absolutely nothing ambiguous about Jesus called Christ; that is, in fact, the best way I can think of to identify the first century Jesus we all know and love.

Ben.

Clivedurdle

Was there not loads of graffiti of fish?

Little problem though, pisces and ichthus looks very mythological! Fishians?

Malachi151

Sure they had that, but that obviously don't affirm any existence of any person, that's just a symbol. Indeed that works against their claims for historicity, as yes, this symbol was indeed Pisces, symbolizing the supposed coming Age of Pisces.

spamandham

More interestingly, it was also the sacred fish symbol of the Pythagoreans, who get an honorable hidden mention in Matthew as well in the story of the 153 fish (153 being known as the number of the fish to the Pythagoreans).

Amaleq13

Would Jesus have really been "more famous" than James when Josephus wrote?

I thought you were buying into the notion that James had an existing reputation prior to becoming a Christian.

Ben C Smith

Josephus was writing in Rome for Romans. Christ, as reputed founder of the sect called the Christians, would surely have been more recognizable than James to a Roman readership.

Ben.

aa5874

Illiterate people are known to have phenomenal memory. Memory is their key to survival.

youngalexander

Now I must confess to being a trifle tongue-in-cheek re Joseph, since he is likely a gospel invention. The point was to emphasise that Josephus would need to identify James, but doing so by introducing the equally unknown Jesus, and giving him a mystifying appellation, hardly meets the requirement.

Stark (The Rise of Christianity, pg7, Tbl 1.1) calculates that xians increased by 40% per yr and constituted about 7500 out of 60m or 0.0126% of the population of the empire by 100CE. Since Antiq appears in 93-94 and the 'research' would have been before that, we can estimate the xians as < 1 in 10k.
Precisely. Then what is the point of Josephus using this term to describe Jesus, in order to identify James?
Very likely. However, both Tacitus and Pliny wrote 20yrs after Antiq. It is one thing to derive Christ via Christianus. It is entirely another to know what Christ means, given no other reference. Josephus gives no other reference, save the dreaded TF.
Did they? This is what you have to demonstrate. A few of them, those who had read Tacitus & Pliny, might have known some 20+ yrs after Josephus wrote Antiq, but he wasn't to know that.
Suetonius was even later than Tacitus & Pliny, apart from the 'Chrestus' chestnut, which I refuse to crack. Lucian is much later. Why did Josephus, in say 90CE, think that any of his readers would understand 'Christ'?

I submit that it is decidedly ambiguous to identify an unknown James by reference to an unknown & inexplicable Jesus called Christ; irrespective of how much we all know and love him.