aa5874

Again, the passage of Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1 with reference to James whose brother was Jesus, called Christ, is irrelevant to the birth of Jesus or his status as God and/or Man.

The very same Antiquities of the Jews 18.3.3 claimed Jesus ROSE from the dead, indicating then that Jesus is some kind of god or supernatural being.

spamandham

That's all I'm saying. If you were going to construct a death scenario from these chapters, what's the best fit from the contemporary forms of execution available? Sure, there's nothing in there that demands crucifixion, but why not pick it since it fits well?

A big deal could be made out of any chosen death mechanism. "There had to have been a historical hanging, because why did they pick hanging instead of crucifixion or stoning!?" or "There had to have been a historical stoning, because why did they pick stoning over crucifixion or hanging!?"

I just don't see a big significance to the method of death. If you're writing a snuff script, you have to pick a method of death. Crucifixion results in the most prolonged suffering. Prolonged suffering is what those chapters describe.

It doesn't necessitate crucifixion, but it's nicely compatible with it. I suppose a clever author could probably have worked Isaiah 53 into any chosen mechanism of death.

GakuseiDon

I think the latter makes sense, under a Doherty mythicist model. Prometheus was chained to a rock, Attis was castrated, Osiris was dismembered. If Satan was going to kill the Son of God, then you'd expect him to choose the most repugnant method available. The problems for obtaining converts would only be after the HJ became established.

jjramsey

It's Matthew, not Mark, that came up with the idea that there was a prophecy that the Messiah "will be called a Nazorean.” (Matthew 2.23) Also, there isn't a prophecy that can be readily read as saying that the Messiah will be a nazirite. Finally, it would be difficult for someone to read the OT and not know that a nazirite is someone who does not drink wine or cuts his hair, since as much is said outright in Numbers, Judges, and Samuel.

There are minority positions and minority positions. Currently, the position that the Testimonium Flavianum is wholly forged is a minority position, but such a position is easily understandable among mainstream scholarship, especially since it requires no huge conspiracy theory, only a scribe who managed to emulate Josephus' style for a brief passage. To get a connection between Peter and Janus, as Arthur Drews did, takes some, ahem, creativity. Bear in mind that in Galatians, Paul even mentions meeting Peter, which further makes the case for a mythical Peter a kludge. That makes me suspicious of Drews' judgment.

But that presumes that Josephus has warrant for believing that "brother of the Lord" and "brother of Jesus" were the same thing.

aa5874

Well, if it was so easy to understand that being called a Nazarene had nothing at all to do with living in NAZARETH, why did the author of Matthew claim that prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus lived in the city called Nazareth?

A real Jew, a real Pharisee, a real chief priest, a real Essenes and a real Saducee familiar with the Jewish Scriptures would have recognised INSTANTLY that the author of gMatthew was completely mistaken. A Nazarene has nothing to with living in a city called Nazareth.

Did any real Jew read gMatthew 1.23? I don't think so.

And why is this passage still in gMatthew up to now?

One suggestion is that the readers, hearers and believers of gMatthew were duped, they probably thought that the author of Matthew knew what he was talking about.

Matthew 2.23 It was a fundamental clear obvious ERROR to claim that living in Nazareth was prophecy fulfilled in order to be called a Nazarene. Now it could have also been a clear obvious ERROR that there was a CITY called NAZARETH during the days of King Herod.

It is extremely likely that the audience of gMatthew were not Jews, not familiar with Jewish Scriptures or with the region called Galilee.

They were just duped.

Amaleq13

Because that statement is far too vague to be helpful in actually explaining anything and certainly too vague to be called "most likely".

By whom, where, and why?

Somebody has to be the first to become convinced and the first to try to convince others.

If you don't, you need a creator. Who is your creator for the mythical Jesus?

So you have a vague claim that cannot be examined in detail and you still insist it must be considered "most likely"? Those details are what changes hand-waving into an actual argument.

spamandham

You're right. My mistake. But I don't think that fundamentally changes the point.

The actual prophecy is in regard to Sampson in Judges 13. But that doesn't matter much either. The expected Messiah took on aspects of many of the larger than life heroes. For example, there is no prophecy that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem either, but since that was the birthplace of David, it was expected.

There is no coherent , concise, consistent listing of what to expect in regards to the Messiah, but that didn't stop people from inventing expectations anyway.

I agree. The implication then is that the Gospel authors were not Jewish experts, but were instead leaning on something else. This idea is compatible with the hatred exhibited toward those who presumably really were experts - the scribes and Pharisees, and is also consistent with Mark's (not Matthew this time, oops), abject lack of knowledge of Galilean geography and poor understanding of Jewish customs.

...I'm not aware that it is a minority position among respected and credentialed scholars, but perhaps it is. I don't see how that's relevant regardless.

Why not just directly address the point at hand (1 Cor 3-11), rather than hand waving it away by implying broad spread quackery on the part of several respected scholars?

aa5874

But, then one can ask why did Homer claim Achilles mother was a sea -goddess or why was Achilles' heel his weak point?

These are all useless questions.

Fables were written about mythical figures called Achilles and Jesus, the former died when an arrow struck his heel and the latter died when he was crucified. I guess Homer could have had Achilles crucified and could have called him the son of God.

Why didn't Homer do that?

jjramsey

You mean this passage, Judges 13:3-5?:

The implication is that the authors were complete idiots. It would be nearly impossible to read Judges 13 without seeing what a nazirite was.

It was simply an example of a reasonable minority position, as opposed to a position that is in the minority for being crackpot.

If I had more time and access to commentaries and other tools, etc., I might have dealt with the text directly. As it stands, the dubious endorsements that you gave me were warning signs, and I pointed that out. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Peter being a myth derived from Janus is quackery.)

spamandham

No, the part that comes immediately after that,

"But he said to me, 'You will conceive and give birth to a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from birth until the day of his death.' "

I doubt the authors were complete idiots. Any fool can see that neither Judges, Psalm 22, or Isaiah 53 are prohecies about some distant future messiah, yet the authors took them as such nonetheless. The implication is the authors were not reading directly from the Jewish scriptures, but instead, were familiar with something (written or oral) derived from the Jewish scriptures.

But if you don't buy the idea that Nazorean was a transliteration error, then your welcome to offer your explaination as to why Matthew claims that having Jesus come from Nazareth was the fulfillment of a prophecy that didn't exist.

I guess I don't know why you bothered to engage the point then. Didn't you already admit that you didn't actually read the argument for the position you are saying is quackery? How then can you claim it to be quackery? Quackery is identified by poor methodology, not simply by surprising results.

IMHO, to simply remove the magical/legendary aspects of the Biblcal characters and declare what's left to be historical, is quintessential quackery. The history that resulted in these stories is obviously deeper than that.