kcdad

Here is your error in logic. I have been trying to point this out to you, but since you finally voiced it, perhaps you will now see it.

David was messiah, that is, Anointed. The Jews have a completely different idea about this anointing than do the Greeks who use the word Christ for their version of anointing.

Jesus was the messiah... that is, anointed. He was "the anointed one". He was not "The Christos" as the Roman and Greek influenced new converts misunderstood.
He was anointed with water by John the Baptizer and by oil by Mary Magdalene. He was anointed by his parousia by the people of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

What we have here, is a failure to communicate.

kcdad

what is wrong with this sentence fragment?

Son of Ananus, a plebeian?
4 years before the war began... that would be when exactly? 62 CE? 30 years after Jesus bar Yousef's death.

I also encourage you to consider the following story from the Gospels: Pilate asks the Jewish people which they would rather have :
1) Someone called "The Son of The Father" or
2) Someone called "The King of The Jews"...

they answer: GIVE US THE SON OF THE FATHER!

This, of course, is the Barabbas story. What if the author of gMark isn't trying to relate history, but instead is talking about the early church division over the credentials this person, Jesus?

avi

Good. I hope you will help us to better understand the problem.
making progress.

So, what is the distinction between "anointing" and messiah? As I understand it, "mashiak", i.e. messiah, simply means, in English, "anointed one". In turn, "anointed" refers to a (1) prophet, or (2) a priest, or (3) a king, either of whom would intercede, on behalf of the humans, with God. (Sounds a lot like the concept of "pope" to me....)

Can you please elaborate on the distinction between the Hebrew word "mashiak" and the Greek word "christos", for I thought that the latter was found in LXX, to represent "mashiak", i.e. these two words are essentially synonyms, without any contradiction to usage by the writers of the Gospels. Obviously, at least to me obvious, if Jesus had been a "prophet", then he would have been, by definition, "mashiak". I am reasonably confident that this is the same interpretation followed by a billion Muslims....



avi

kcdad

well... they aren't synonyms. The Greek concept of The Christos is different in that originally the Chi-Rho was a symbol of good fortune, so a Chi-Rho-ist would be someone who brought good fortune. see this:
THE CHI-RHO CROSS
it is composed of the greek letters ‘chi’ (which looks like an
english ‘X’ and sounds like a ‘ch’) and rho (which looks like
an english capital ‘P’ and sounds like an ‘r’).
these two greek letters are the first two letters in the greek word
‘christos’. as a pre-christian symbol, the chi-ro signified good fortune.
it became an important christian symbol when adopted by the
roman emperor constantine, in the fourth century.
this style of cross is nearly identical to the pagan symbol for the
sun and constantine was a sunworshipper before and after he
was converted to christianity. he made the cross the standard of his
armies. when christianity later became the state religion of the
roman empire, the cross became the symbol of the church.

As Paul and other Greek and Roman "converts" saw Jesus, he was not only the Chi-Rho-ist, but he was, like Octavian (Caesar Augustus), "the true God, god from gods, the one to be worshiped, savior of the world". Combining these pre-Christian symbolic meanings into one they knew as Messiah, they came up The Christ, the KING, instead of Jesus the teacher, Jesus the suffering servant.

The fairly modern idea (compared to Messiah) that Christ is word that identifies an anointed leader is based on the false presumption that that is what the Greeks intended when they translated this Hebrew word and concept (messiah) into a Greek one (christ). Even the translators of the LXX would have to use non-Jewish ideology to translate this unique Jewish concept into Greek. The point is, I guess, that translating Messiah into Christ is like translating baby into infant... and yet how many people call their lovers "infant"? (as in "ooh infant, that feels soooo good.")

You didn't become a King or Emperor in Greece or Rome by being selected by a priest. You got selected by actually being a GOD or the progeny of a God.

Larkin31

No kidding. And so what? To different people, two different cases, two somewhat different results.

YOU claimed that Jesus of Nazareth is unlikely to be real BECAUSE he was not beaten (that was your suggestion). I replied that he WAS beaten, and then executed--as were MANY OTHER JEWS. Now you are changing my claim again.

You really squirm around a lot in these posts.

maryhelena

Hi, avi

Yes, I suppose if you put it that way - re the lumberjack - that it makes the idea of "very strong probability" not mean very much at all. Hundreds of lumberjacks down through the years. However, in the context of the gospel storyline and the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, the field is narrowed quite a bit...

Basically, the HJ position (i.e. not the fundamentalist position) is a position that has removed the supernatural elements from the gospel Jesus of Nazareth - and believes that when they do that - that underneath, so to speak, is the historical Jesus. And, of course, they claim probability is on the side of historicity for Jesus of Nazareth.

All I am doing is saying that that method produces a nobody, an everyman, a man that it would be impossible to find any historicity for. Its a dead end approach - if one is seeking early Christian origins.

A mythicist position that denies any historical individual whose life has impacted upon the gospel storyline re Jesus of Nazareth - is, actually, no different - its another dead approach.

Common ground between the two camps is possible - and would enable some sort of forward movement - but both camps have to give up some cherished notion...

I'm not suggesting that any historical man = Jesus of Nazareth by some other name. Far from it. In fact, such a historical individual could easily have been dead before the Jesus of Nazareth storyboard was created.

What I do propose is that the gospel storyline regarding Jesus of Nazareth has been influenced by a historical individual - much like a modern day novel that has drawn on real people for its characterizations. Actually, quite some years back, I did write to Earl Doherty re this idea - and his response, on his website - is interesting.

(Of course, I don't equate any historical individual = Jesus of Nazareth - much less upholding a historical Jesus.)

However, not wanting to go there, so to speak, not wanting to grabble with the historical elements, the historical figures, that "fed into the Gospel Jesus" is, to my mind, shortchanging the mythicist position. Exchanging, as it were, the historical colouring, the historical individuals, that have impacted the Jesus mythology, for a sublunar sphere - well, that's a storyline that many people are going to find unattractive. Its a very hard sell...

It's not a case of ascribing any degree of probability to there being a historical Jesus of Nazareth underneath the mythology. The probability is that a historical figure, or figures, have impacted the creation of that myth - so yes, I would say a very high degree of probability - things did not fall out of the sky - Paul, notwithstanding. Design by committee is no answer either - imagine finding some consensus re just which individuals were to be reflected in the Jesus storyboard - much more likely the evidence, whatever it was, was readily available.


An earlier tradition prior to Paul - maybe not about the Jesus of Nazareth mythology - but a tradition involving a real historical person whose life had impacted upon those around him. After all - people do like stories about people!

Paul, for the sake of argument, hears the storyline, persecutes the storytellers, has his vision and not only finds value in the storyline - but decides to have the storyline change course - and the rest is, as they say, history....a brotherhood not of blood, of lineage, but of the spirit....And everything worked out just fine - except our 21st century minds have had enough of storylines and want the historical facts - the tradition that gave birth to the gospel storyline....

Larkin31

I see 2 total sources here (Bible and Josephus). Yet, earlier in this thread, you reject the Bible as a source of untruths.

Do you accept the Bible or not as a reliable source?

And, although I am not a believing Christian, it should be pointed out that the fact that NT details reflect OT prophecies is not in itself "proof" that a historical Jesus did not exist.

aa5874

.

Those who claim that there was a historical person behind the Jesus story MUST have the burden of proof, no-one else has the obligation to prove the absence of a person with no history.

Maryhelena's notion makes very little sense.

In order to accede to Well's, this writer MUST SHOW, and not by imagination, but by SPECIFIC historical sources, that there actually was a specific individual.

It appears to me that maryhelena does not understand the implications of claiming that there is a very strong probability that there was a specific individual and still not provide one single piece of evidence to support such a claim.

By removing all the KNOWN non-historical elements of any mythical figure, then one can postulate that any entity considered mythical was in fact historical or that there was a specific individual behind any myth.

Such approach of ignoring or rejecting evidence is virtually equivalent to tampering with evidence to affect the outcome of an investigation.

But, the known non-historical elements are fundamental in declaring an entity a myth, that is how mermaids, unicorns, Achilles, Apollo, and the hosts of mythical entities were so EASILY determined to be mythological.

These are two fundamental elements of MYTHS.

1. KNOWN non-historical characteristics.

2. No known historical evidence of existence.

Jesus of the NT was described with virtually all known non-historical elements from conception to ascension and there is no known historical evidence of his existence.

But, such methodology is counterproductive and illogical or even absurd.

You cannot remove any mythological information about Jesus just to claim he was not a myth. The mythological information about Jesus has even been multiple attested to be true.

And even when you remove the multiple attested mythological information about Jesus, you are left with NOTHING, no historical sources, ZERO.

Jesus has been internally CONFIRMED to be MYTHOLOGICAL by the authors of NT and Church writers. This internal confirmation CANNOT be ignored at all.

Well, now you have actually, perhaps inadvertently, REVEALED the SPECIFIC individual that was behind the Jesus story.

You have identified him. You found him.

MR. NOBODY

Tell MR. WELLS. Maybe he don't know. Please give him the specifics of MR.NOBODY.

Larkin31

Is absence of evidence by today's standards absence of existence?

aa5874

All things considered not in existence UP TO NOW have NO EVIDENCE of their existence.

Achilles was described as myth and has no known credible historical source of his existence.

What do you call Achilles? A MYTH

Now, Jesus was described in HUNDREDS of sources of antiquity as God, the Creator, the Ghost of God, who walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds, and there are no known credible historical sources for his existence.

What do you want me to call Jesus of the NT?

You don't have to guess.

It is in black and white.

Jesus was the offspring of a Ghost of God, in the ABSENCE of any other evidence.
Mt 1:18 - Do you want more EVIDENCE of the MYTH, the Ghost of God? I have an ABUNDANCE.