Mythra

Although Lazarus certainly qualified as a zombie - here is the famous zombie passage: (Matt 27)

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

Toto

Are you sure that the theory wasn't that Banos was the model for John the Baptist? There are some interesting comments here on the silences in Josephus. (Scroll down to "The Silence of Josephus'' by J.M. Robertson.)

Malachi151

I'm sure that's true at some level, but it would still be a devastating blow, and would pretty well undermine it at an academic level.

Julian

You cannot possibly prove a negative. What you can do is show that something is so unlikely as to be the near-equivalent of impossible. However, as long as that tiny sliver of possibility exists you will find hordes of people accepting it as a fact. We see it here all the time from fundamentalists, "You can't know everything!" Therefore, you cannot say for sure if it isn't all true. Therefore, they can believe because you can never prove them irrefutably wrong.

I mean, look at the total absurdity of religious beliefs, christianity in particular in this case. Do you honestly think that someone who has accepted this as reasonable could ever be persuaded by any kind of evidence? Especially, when you consider that many christians are otherwise very intelligent and fully capable of rational thought in many other areas than this one. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this thread and even BC&H.

I can come up with a totally insane claim and there is no way anyone can ever prove it irrefutably false. That doesn't mean I shouldn't still be committed. If I ever made such claim, that is...

Julian

P.S. And, no, this post doesn't qualify.

The Evil One

I have argued that on another thread, even if there IS a man behind the legends, his existence does not equal "Jesus existed", unless he is substantially "the same person" as the Jesus of the legends.

The only Jesus we have access to is the Jesus of the texts. If we can be reasonably sure that any Jesus who might possibly have existed could not resemble the Jesus of the texts in any of the critical details, then we can state with confidence that Jesus (in the sense of "our" Jesus, the Jesus of the texts) never existed, even if there was some historical individual down there under the myths.

So if pre-C1 documents were found that would be one more aspect differentiating the "real Jesus" from the "Jesus of the texts" and the greater the distance between them, the more justifiable it becomes to say that "Jesus fo the texts" never existed.

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On another subject: Ideologist, you don't appear to have any idea re: Josephus. Yes he mentions the census, everyone accepts there was a census in 6CE. The argued historical inaccuracy in Luke is not the fact of the census, but the idea that the census would have required a man to escort his pregnant wife to a different city solely because his ancestors lived there, such requirements not typically being a feature of censuses. Now I don't know for myself how good that argument is but if you're going to address it, address it, not a strawman.

As for "Josephus is regarded by some to have been biased toward Herod because of Nicholas of Damascus" -- I've read what Josephus says about Herod; if J. was biased towards him, the mind boggles to imagine what his enemies would say.

Ideologist

As I said, I didn't put any credence into the theory. But the only Banos in the Life is this;

Now, given that we're already discussing a theory where Jesus is entirely mythical, where every one of the writings of the early Church is fabricated or too heavily interpolated to matter, and where Christianity is a second- or third-century forgery. I don't think it's too far of a leap to say that someone practicing rather odd ascetic beliefs might be a proto-Christian.

I don't.

Aha; that one. I would argue (and, indeed, would most non-literalists) that much of the Crucifixion in the Synoptics is done for dramatic effect.

That is another theory, yes, but it's not the one I was referring to.

It is, certainly, a very interesting theory in its own right.

Possibly, but I don't think such a document would turn up in any case.

Julian

The 'academic' level of biblical studies doesn't mean the same thing as it does in other academic fields. Remember, most of the 'scientists' in biblical studies accept miracles, deities, demons, magic, and other silliness.

Biblical scholars, PhDs and equivalents, are very knowledgable and there is no question that they have dedicated many years to hard study and have come away from it with loads of information and knowledge. However, they are not scientists. Most of them wouldn't know scientific methodology if it hit them in the head with a sledgehammer. My blog entry on this.

Disclaimer: I am obviously generalizing. If you are a biblical scholar and find this to be incorrect in describing you, you may be right. You may also be wrong. How will you make your case? *snicker*

Julian

Ideologist

This is, of course, assuming that "the real Jesus" of this new document was not substantially similar to "the Jesus of the texts," in which case there would certainly be evidence for disputing the authenticity of the Gospels but the actual historical personage might be substantially unchanged.

*sigh*

Here is the relevant text;

No, this was not standard practice in Roman censuses; indeed, the Romans tended to do things by location. However, the traditional Jewish method for doing censuses was by tribe, and it has been demonstrated both that Roman citizens occasionally registered by tribe, and that the Romans sometimes retained local customs for censuses.

Now, it may seem strange that Joseph would impose such a journey on Mary, but it's not unusual.

In that Josephus received much of his information from Nicholas of Damascus, who was a close friend of Herod. Josephus still contains many passages that are distinctly anti-Herod, but that he lacks some things is not inherently suspicious.

pharoah

OK, you're doing fine so far.

Do you have a cite showing that 1st century BC or AD Jews conducted censuses by tribe?

Cite?

Cite?

Cite?

Amaleq13

Demonstrated how? Please provide the evidence for this claim.

Please provide the evidence that indicates "local customs for censuses" required everyone of Davidic lineage to travel to Bethlehem to be counted.

Also, why would people from a region not under direct Roman control be required to enter a region that was (newly) under direct control? The purpose of the census was to assess the property in Judea but the author indicates that Joseph had no property in Bethlehem (2:7).

It seems homicidal to me but I would be interested in any evidence that suggests it was merely "unusual".