Gooch's dad

WinAce pretty much covered what I would have said too.

I think the smaller reference in Josephus (Ant. 20.9.1) , and the Tacitus reference too (although less so) are decent evidence for a historical Jesus. As Peter Kirby has said on his Testimonium page, the agreement between two independent writers on James being the brother of Jesus, is solid enough evidence to say that the man Jesus existed.

IMO, the gospels themselves provide a bit of historical evidence too (although not much). The crucifixion, the embarassing bits such as John 7:42, where Jesus is explicitly accused of NOT being from Bethlehem, these sort of details show that there probably was a man at the core of the myth.

But as a fellow skeptic said to me, it's about like saying that there's a real Ed Gein at the core of the Norman Bates/Psycho story.

Kelly

Gawen

Capnkirk,

I'm going to have to read Maccoby and your stuff before I ask any more questions. A lot of this thread makes no sense as it seems to indepth and convoluted and in a couple cases contrived. Not by you, of course. I simply must read up everyone's sources and THEN ask questions.

Ted Hoffman

Nice review Toto. I have always wondered why someone so widely read wont write reviews so that those like me who know very little and have read such few books can benefit from an informed and well-written analysis of books.

We need those reviews sir.

Vorkosigan

There was a Roman Temple in Qedesh, no? Hippos had a roman temple too. Bethsaida had a Roman Temple. Also one in Banias, which takes its name from the god Pan. There seem to have been several other ones.

Am I all confused? Or have I misunderstood something?

Amaleq13

I would be more interested in the evidence for southern Galilee since that is the location Kloppenborg argues (persuasively IMO) as the "home base" of the Q prophets in Excavating Q.

Peter Kirby

Sepphoris, Tiberius, Nazareth, and Capernaum are actually in southern Galilee. See here:

Galilee map

best,
Peter Kirby

Doctor X

Unless they are both pious frauds which mean we are right back with . . . nothing.

--J.D.

Gooch's dad

Doctor X;

I would call that a fallacy of special pleading. Unless there is some actual textual evidence to show that Paul and Josephus collaborated on this fraud, they provide two independent sources for the "James the brother of Jesus" claim.

There is no a priori reason to doubt this evidence.

Artemus

According to Origen, Josephus wrote that the people thought the temple was destroyed as a result of the injustice to James. This is found nowhere in extant copies of Josephus. This is evidence of tampering with documents going back to the very begining. Doubts are about the authenticity are therefore reasonable.

Llyricist

Two things, first:

It was not "brother of Jesus" in Paul, but "brother of the lord", and the earliest attestation to Josephus also has "brother of the lord"

Secondly the "pious fraud" would not have required Josephus and Paul's collaberation. Only someone later inserting it into one or both documents.