Freethought & Rationalism Archive

RogueBibleScholar · 04-26-2010, 02:39 PM

>Well done. Your article is thoughtfully presented and set out - sources cited.

Thanks. I'm glad to see that someone else thinks I may be right about this.

>Many authors have been suspicious of the "Christian" references in Josephus
>since the age of enlightenment, and many have suspected the interpolator to
>have been Eusebius. I have even attempted to write an article - entitled
>Making Fruit Salad of the Testimonium Flavianum.

I've started looking at it, but haven't finished. However, polling scholars seems to me to be one of the lesser forms of evidence. But for the time we find ourselves in, the prevailing view might be wrong.

>What's next? What are the implications of your analyses? Do you go along
> with the idea that Eusebius performed this task?

Short questions, but the answers aren't that simple. I'll answer these in reverse order. I do not think this one can be laid on Eusebius' doorstep. In the case of the TF, we have an unusual amount of info implicating him: 1) He admits to using falsehood as a remedy, 2) He is the first to find the TF in anything close to its current state, although Jerome appears to have changed it slightly. 3) Eusebius shows three different versions of it - one of which appears considerably more primitive than our present. I think this may be closer to its original form; not Agapus' version, that is much like our received version, but toned down. A good perspective on this is Origen. Origen knows of no passage in which Josephus thinks Jesus was the Christ, but the received version of the TF says exactly that. Thus, our modern version probably post-dates Origen. By contrast, Origen does know of a passage in Josephus about James; and arguably, when he says Josephus says James' death was the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem, may be simply referring to the fact that James is the last high-profile martyr before its destruction in the Antiquities. Thus, to judge by Origins somewhat inscrutable remarks, the modern TF came into being after his time, but a passage on James already existed in his time; long before that of Eusebius. Again, since it has James as apparently the natural brother of Jesus, it seems to have been added at an earlier time. Eisenman, in James the Brother of Jesus, points out that the natural brothers relationship was a feature of early Christianity. For Patristic writers who have it thus in a later time, a literature search would have to be undertaken. This is not to say that Eusebius is completely uninvolved. I detect two such layers of editing; and hypothetically, he might be one. I do not think that the initial episode with James being martyred and Ananus ben Ananus being deposed was his; and unlike the TF, any involvement with Eusebius would be much more circumstantial, and largely hypothetical. It would be complete speculation at this point; but I do not believe that the introduction of James into the text, and the subsequent violence done to the order of the priests and their chronology, were introduced in Eusebius' time. It is to Josephus' credit that his narratives are so "tightly woven", as Mason says, that the three instances of Christian tampering (not counting the Discourse on Hades) all betray obvious signs of such tampering. If Josephus was secretly Christian and penned these himself, he would have had to have been brilliant to introduce what appear to be much cruder textual tampering; and then Eusebius' and Origen's observations about the TF would be unexplained. Reading Josephus, I believe we are seeing a strictly Temple period Jewish mind, interrupted by three rather crude instances of Christian tampering. Atwill's assertions about Decius Mundus are completely applicable to the Roman Decius Mus, where Josephus designates Vespasian as Messiah, with Titus the next king in the dynasty. It is the charge about Josephus and two others having invented a religion that gives me most pause. Surely he knew about Christianity, right? Then, where does he acknowledge it? If John, James and Jesus are all Christian tampering, where does Josephus even mention Christianity? I have no trail of evidence that leads anywhere after this; balanced against the very Jewish voice I detect throughout the rest of the corpus of Josephus, where it does not show signs of textual tampering.

What are the implications? In short, I believe that the edits I am discussing involve only the Antiquities, B. XX, ch. 9; with a smattering of Josephan language still surviving. More broadly, it strengthens the case of the Jesus mythicists; although detecting the difference between a peasant leader who was co-opted for Rome for their own purposes, and a complete work of fiction meant to refer to primarily Titus, may be somewhere between extremely difficult to impossible. Who knows? Nobody does, until you actually get into the sources, and figure out what's going on. If the passage on James is a complete work of fiction, as seems to be the case, Origin is aware of a passage on Jesus, although not our current one, and there are no evidences of wholesale rearrangement of Josephus' histories in that case, so I think there is more evidence to say that the passage on James is a complete fictional introduction than the one on Jesus. Some of the phrases in the TF actually do sound Josephan.

Another implication, is that Eisenman is highlighting the idea that the martyrdom of Stephan in Acts is really a stand-in for James This suggests a possible link between the sons of Judas the Galilean that were martyred shortly after Stephan was, i.e. James and Simon, and the biblical James. I think this idea deserves a much closer look; what with my observations about the James passage.

What's next? As above, reevaluating the idea that Stephan was really James. Evaluating other possible primary sources of history for the era. There are not many non-Christian ones, but it ought to be worthwhile to see if there are signs of a Roman origin in First Century pseudo Jewish works, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Shepherd of Hermas. If there were obvious involvement in cases like that, it would be evidence for an ongoing program of that sort. Another interesting idea is that a guy on Youtube suggested a link between the Christian St. Veronica and Herod Berenice from Josephus. In Greek, Berenice is pronounced ver-e-NEE-kay. This may point out more closely who is being allegorically referred to as friends and relatives of Jesus in the Gospels; as per Atwill. The Mandaean scriptures are interesting, and it is intriguing that John the Baptist is already baptizing early in the First Century; at roughly the time a John the Baptist type of character is doing likewise in the Slavonic Josephus. After Atwill, I am more skeptical of this idea; but it would be worthwhile to see what else can be found to support that time-frame. I also suspect that Marcion's gospels may have been the originals; and I'll reserve some of what I've found on the subject until I can get it up on my site. I have other things to be attending in the snort-term; however. Finally, a very intriguing idea is what Eisenman is claiming in relation to the DSS; in that the James the brother of Jesus in the Bible may have been a Qumran character; and that the prophetic and exegesis texts of Qumran may have actually been the community about which the NT is referring to as Christian; although they were completely Jewish in nature, and were quite unlike the Christians of the scriptures at all. It sounds very plausible, that the passages where the Kittim are attacking Judea are actually the Romans attacking it during the War; and that scholars who date them much earlier on paleographic grounds are being obstinate on these dates for political reasons. I do disagree with him, however, that radiocarbon dates are not relevant to this discussion; but that is not to say that he is wrong.

mountainman · 04-26-2010, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogueBibleScholar

However, polling scholars seems to me to be one of the lesser forms of evidence.

I agree, but others seem to relish this approach. For example ...

Early Christian Writings

Christopher Price

They are playing the usual numbers racket on the basis that if they can find enough apologists supporting the notion that the passage is genuine then they have made their case.

Johnny Skeptic · 04-26-2010, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogueBibleScholar

However, polling scholars seems to me to be one of the lesser forms of evidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

I agree, but others seem to relish this approach. For example,

Early Christian Writings

Christopher Price

They are playing the usual numbers racket on the basis that if they can find enough apologists supporting the notion that the passage is genuine then they have made their case.

The first link that you mentioned is by Peter Kirby. Consider the following from that link:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Kirby

The following passage is found in the extant Greek manuscripts of Josephus (Ambrosianus in the 11th century, Vaticanus in the 14th century, and Marcianus in the 15th century). This passage is quoted by Eusebius in the fourth century: in the Evangelical Demonstration 3.5, in the Ecclesiastical History 1.11, and in the Theophany.

Antiquities 18.3.3. "Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day."

In my own reading of thirteen books since 1980 that touch upon the passage, ten out of thirteen argue the Testimonium to be partly genuine, while the other three maintain it to be entirely spurious. Coincidentally, the same three books also argue that Jesus did not exist. In one book, by Freke and Gandy, the authors go so far as to state that no "serious scholar" believes that the passage has authenticity (p. 137), which is a serious misrepresentation indeed.

It is impossible that this passage is entirely genuine. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a believing Jew working under Romans, would have written, "He was the Messiah." This would make him suspect of treason, but nowhere else is there an indication that he was a Christian. Indeed, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus declares that Vespasian fulfilled the messianic oracles. Furthermore, Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."

Either the passage received a few glosses, or the passage was inserted here in entirety. Those who favor partial authenticity usually bracket the phrases "if it be lawful to call him a man," "He was the Christ," and "for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousan other wonderful things concerning him."

Elsewhere, Peter says:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Kirby

But assuming that at least the shorter reference is authentic, what can we conclude from this? It shows that Josephus accepted the historicity of Jesus. Simply by the standard practice of conducting history, a comment from Josephus about a fact of the first century constitutes prima facie evidence for that fact. It ought to be accepted as history unless there is good reason for disputing the fact. Moreover, it is reasonable to think that Josephus heard about the deposition of Ananus as soon as it happened. Ed Tyler points out in correspondence, "The passage is not really about James, but about Ananus. It's the tale of how Ananus lost his job as High Priest. So why would Christians in Rome be the source for the tale of how a High Priest lost his job? Josephus was close at hand when it happened, and was a man of some standing in the Jewish community. I can't imagine that he missed it when it was news, and didn't find out about it until he talked to some Christians about 30 years later." Thus, Josephus' information about the identity of James brings us back to the period prior to the First Jewish Revolt. If Josephus referred to James as the brother of Jesus in the Antiquities, in all likelihood the historical James identified himself as the brother of Jesus, and this identification would secure the place of Jesus as a figure in history.

Doesn't Peter Kirby argue that Josephus believed that a man named Jesus existed, but that Josephus did not write that Jesus was the messiah?

RogueBibleScholar · 04-26-2010, 06:05 PM

I am probably being too hard on the Mandaeans above. It fits remarkably well from a sociological point of view for Jesus to have been a member of a caste of priests. They called one level of their priests Nazareans; a caste which didn't have sex or drink. This does much to explain Jesus' "become eunichs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven." This is completely out of step with Judaism and Torah practice; and is pretty extreme for even Roman thought, although they had their eunich slaves and vestal virgins. While it seems unlikely that they embraced Jesus' ideals for their priestly order, and then rejected them; it cannot be ruled out. That is the problem with Mandaeanism. While it fits very well with some of Jesus' more extreme teachings, the antiquity of their practices has not yet been definitively been established; and they are under great duress under the U.S. in Iraq, last I heard.

Even if we are never able to prove anything definitive based on, e.g. the Mandaean scriptures, I think there are enough records of the birth of Christianity around for us to come much closer to the truth of how it formed than we are now.

mountainman · 04-26-2010, 09:36 PM

Both treatments referenced at those links defer to the survey of Feldman and appear to be trying to argue from numerical superiority:

Quote:

Originally Posted by KIRBY

Louis H. Feldman surveyed the relevant literature from 1937 to 1980 in Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Feldman noted that 4 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely genuine, 6 as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRICE

In his book Josephus and Modern Scholarship, Professor Feldman reports that between 1937 to 1980, of 52 scholars reviewing the subject, 39 found portions of the TF to be authentic.

Both treatments ingnore the statistics of earlier scholarship commencing from the 17th century up until 1937, which had little hesitation to pronouce both the TF and the James reference as "Christian forgeries".

1762: Bishop Warburton of Gloucester -""a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too",
1767: Dr. Nathaniel Lardner quotes Bishop Warburtonof Gloucester.
1788: Edward Gibbon - "may furnish an example of no vulgar forgery". D&F V2,Ch16,Pt2,FN [36]

18??: Ittigius (CMU, 47),
18??: Blondel (CMU, 47)
18??: Le Clerc (CMU, 47)
18??: Vandale (CMU, 47)
18??: Tanaquil Faber.'" (CMU, 47)

1830: Dr. Alexander Campbell
1833: Dr. Thomas Chalmers
1842: Mitchell Logan, Christian Mythology Unveiled (CMU)
1873: Theodor Keim - cited by Acharya S
1874: Cannon Farrar - 'The single passage in which he [Josephus] alludes to him is interpolated, if not wholly spurious'
1877: The Rev. Dr. Giles (Church of England) - "Hebrew and Christian records; an historical enquiry" - p. 30
1888: Rev. S. Baring-Gould - "Lost and Hostile Gospels," says: "first quoted by Eusebius - Hist. Eccl., lib. i, c. xi ; Demonst. Evang., lib. iii);
1889: Rev. Dr. Hooykaas - "certainly spurious, inserted by a later Christian hand." (Bible for Learners, Vol. III, p. 27)
1890: Emil Schürer - A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ - REF
1894: Edwin Johnson, "Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins" - REF
1897: Jakob Burckhardt "Eusebius was the first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity"

1900: Harnack - www.ccel.org/h/harnack
1909: John Remsburg; "The Christ" ("We must get rid of that Christ" - Emerson) - REF
1910: NY Times Article on Arthur Drews: "Jesus never lived" - REF
1912: Arthur Drews - The Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus - REF
1922: Marshall J. Gauvin - "Everything demonstrates the spurious character of the passage." - REF
1928: Solomn Zeitlin, [1928]
1939: Charles Guignebert "Jesus" -- "a pure Christian forgery"

Johnny Skeptic · 04-26-2010, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Both treatments referenced at those links defer to the survey of Feldman and appear to be trying to argue from numerical superiority:

Quote:

Kirby:

"Louis H. Feldman surveyed the relevant literature from 1937 to 1980 in Josephus and Modern Scholarship. Feldman noted that 4 scholars regarded the Testimonium Flavianum as entirely genuine, 6 as mostly genuine, 20 accept it with some interpolations, 9 with several interpolations, and 13 regard it as being totally an interpolation.

Ok, Feldman says:

4 scholars - TF is entirely genuine
6 scholars - TF is mostly genuine
20 scholars - accept TF with some interpolations
9 scholars - TF has several interpolations
13 scholars - TF is totally an interpolation

Since only 4 out of 52 scholars believe that TF is entirely genuine, how does that favor Josephus as a source regarding the claim that Jesus was the messiah?

Peter Kirby said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Kirby

It is impossible that this passage is entirely genuine. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a believing Jew working under Romans, would have written, "He was the Messiah." This would make him suspect of treason, but nowhere else is there an indication that he was a Christian. Indeed, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus declares that Vespasian fulfilled the messianic oracles. Furthermore, Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."

Either the passage received a few glosses, or the passage was inserted here in entirety. Those who favor partial authenticity usually bracket the phrases "if it be lawful to call him a man," "He was the Christ," and "for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousan other wonderful things concerning him."

How does your comment that "others seem to relish this approach," including Peter Kirby, apply to Peter Kirby?

By the way, I do not trust Eusebius either.

mountainman · 04-26-2010, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Ok, Feldman says:

4 scholars - TF is entirely genuine
6 scholars - TF is mostly genuine
20 scholars - accept TF with some interpolations
9 scholars - TF has several interpolations
13 scholars - TF is totally an interpolation

Since only 4 out of 52 scholars believe that TF is entirely genuine, how does that favor Josephus as a source regarding the claim that Jesus was the messiah?

I have outlined my analysis of the situation in an article entitled Making fruit salad of the Testimonium Flavianum

Essentially in the beginning Eusebius says that the TF is "A Genuine Rosy and Delicious Apple". From the above stats, he has 4 supporters who think the TF is such - "A Genuine Rosy and Delicious Apple".

Then in the Age of Enlightment we find people saying "The TF is a Sour Lemon" (ie: a common forgery, and a stupid one). This corresponds in the above stats to the 13 people who say it is totally an interpolation.

Modern "apologetic" scholarship, not content with the Apple or the Lemon have contrived to argue for another tyope of fruit altogether, which I have called "An Orange". These are the people who claim "partial interpolation". That is, the TF is neither a Lemon or an Apple but an Orange. This is the typical modus operandi of defence attorneys. But these people then use the numeric support of all (more modern) commentators who so consider we are dealing not with an Apple, nor a Lemon, but something like an Orange.

Quote:

How does your comment that "others seem to relish this approach," including Peter Kirby, apply to Peter Kirby?

Peter Kirby states the following conclusion ....

Quote:

Conclusion

.... The present author was once firmly convinced that both references in the Antiquities were authentic. After reading the study of Ken Olson that shows the vocabulary of the Testimonium to be not Josephan but rather Eusebian, I was inclined to regard both references as spurious. But now that I have found evidence that the reference in 20.9.1 does not require an earlier reference to Jesus, I am presently persuaded to regard the shorter reference as authentic.

...[...]...

If Josephus referred to James as the brother of Jesus in the Antiquities, in all likelihood the historical James identified himself as the brother of Jesus, and this identification would secure the place of Jesus as a figure in history.

For some reason Peter regards the shorter reference as authentic, and concludes we are dealing with an HJ.

Quote:

By the way, I do not trust Eusebius either.

Eusebius is being trusted on both sides of the Christian Coinage.
(1) HEADS = the books of the New Testament Canon.
(2) TAILS = the books of the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts".

His authority is far too insidiously entrenched in (1) to be outrightly questioned. If we reject Eusebius with respect to the Canon we are left with the default position that Constantine sponsored him to fabricate the history of the "Nation of Christians" as a political masterstroke. This approach appears to beyond the psychological limitations of most researchers.

On the other hand, Eusebius' weakest insidious entrenchment is in regard to the flip-side of the coinage (2) --- his presentation of the "History of the Gnostic Opposition to the Canon".

Therefore, it will be my recommendation to anyone who is considering taking on the authority of Eusebius to do so on the ground of the history of the Gnostics. At least in this domain we have some favorable C14 citations. I have outlined a method of attack on Eusebius' position on this (2) in the thread entitled C14 dating the "Gnostic Gospels and Acts" to the 4th century. Please feel free to have a look at these arguments and to make a comment.

I repeat, IMO Eusebius appears "too strong" with respect to the Canon, and that his weakest point - his archilles heel so to speak - is in respect of (2) the Non Canonical corpus of "Early Christian Literature". If Eusebius is to be taken down (and I am convinced this lying SOB needs to be taken out) we need to attack his weakest point first. After Eusebius is taken down in respect of his authority of the history of the Gnostic Opposition to the Canon, then we can turn around and re-examine what is left of his authority in respect of the history of the Historical Jesus and the Nation of Christians which were extant until that fateful day of Nicaea c.325 CE.

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04-26-2010, 02:39 PM	#11
RogueBibleScholar Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Europe Posts: 35	>Well done. Your article is thoughtfully presented and set out - sources cited. Thanks. I'm glad to see that someone else thinks I may be right about this. >Many authors have been suspicious of the "Christian" references in Josephus >since the age of enlightenment, and many have suspected the interpolator to >have been Eusebius. I have even attempted to write an article - entitled >Making Fruit Salad of the Testimonium Flavianum. I've started looking at it, but haven't finished. However, polling scholars seems to me to be one of the lesser forms of evidence. But for the time we find ourselves in, the prevailing view might be wrong. >What's next? What are the implications of your analyses? Do you go along > with the idea that Eusebius performed this task? Short questions, but the answers aren't that simple. I'll answer these in reverse order. I do not think this one can be laid on Eusebius' doorstep. In the case of the TF, we have an unusual amount of info implicating him: 1) He admits to using falsehood as a remedy, 2) He is the first to find the TF in anything close to its current state, although Jerome appears to have changed it slightly. 3) Eusebius shows three different versions of it - one of which appears considerably more primitive than our present. I think this may be closer to its original form; not Agapus' version, that is much like our received version, but toned down. A good perspective on this is Origen. Origen knows of no passage in which Josephus thinks Jesus was the Christ, but the received version of the TF says exactly that. Thus, our modern version probably post-dates Origen. By contrast, Origen does know of a passage in Josephus about James; and arguably, when he says Josephus says James' death was the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem, may be simply referring to the fact that James is the last high-profile martyr before its destruction in the Antiquities. Thus, to judge by Origins somewhat inscrutable remarks, the modern TF came into being after his time, but a passage on James already existed in his time; long before that of Eusebius. Again, since it has James as apparently the natural brother of Jesus, it seems to have been added at an earlier time. Eisenman, in James the Brother of Jesus, points out that the natural brothers relationship was a feature of early Christianity. For Patristic writers who have it thus in a later time, a literature search would have to be undertaken. This is not to say that Eusebius is completely uninvolved. I detect two such layers of editing; and hypothetically, he might be one. I do not think that the initial episode with James being martyred and Ananus ben Ananus being deposed was his; and unlike the TF, any involvement with Eusebius would be much more circumstantial, and largely hypothetical. It would be complete speculation at this point; but I do not believe that the introduction of James into the text, and the subsequent violence done to the order of the priests and their chronology, were introduced in Eusebius' time. It is to Josephus' credit that his narratives are so "tightly woven", as Mason says, that the three instances of Christian tampering (not counting the Discourse on Hades) all betray obvious signs of such tampering. If Josephus was secretly Christian and penned these himself, he would have had to have been brilliant to introduce what appear to be much cruder textual tampering; and then Eusebius' and Origen's observations about the TF would be unexplained. Reading Josephus, I believe we are seeing a strictly Temple period Jewish mind, interrupted by three rather crude instances of Christian tampering. Atwill's assertions about Decius Mundus are completely applicable to the Roman Decius Mus, where Josephus designates Vespasian as Messiah, with Titus the next king in the dynasty. It is the charge about Josephus and two others having invented a religion that gives me most pause. Surely he knew about Christianity, right? Then, where does he acknowledge it? If John, James and Jesus are all Christian tampering, where does Josephus even mention Christianity? I have no trail of evidence that leads anywhere after this; balanced against the very Jewish voice I detect throughout the rest of the corpus of Josephus, where it does not show signs of textual tampering. What are the implications? In short, I believe that the edits I am discussing involve only the Antiquities, B. XX, ch. 9; with a smattering of Josephan language still surviving. More broadly, it strengthens the case of the Jesus mythicists; although detecting the difference between a peasant leader who was co-opted for Rome for their own purposes, and a complete work of fiction meant to refer to primarily Titus, may be somewhere between extremely difficult to impossible. Who knows? Nobody does, until you actually get into the sources, and figure out what's going on. If the passage on James is a complete work of fiction, as seems to be the case, Origin is aware of a passage on Jesus, although not our current one, and there are no evidences of wholesale rearrangement of Josephus' histories in that case, so I think there is more evidence to say that the passage on James is a complete fictional introduction than the one on Jesus. Some of the phrases in the TF actually do sound Josephan. Another implication, is that Eisenman is highlighting the idea that the martyrdom of Stephan in Acts is really a stand-in for James This suggests a possible link between the sons of Judas the Galilean that were martyred shortly after Stephan was, i.e. James and Simon, and the biblical James. I think this idea deserves a much closer look; what with my observations about the James passage. What's next? As above, reevaluating the idea that Stephan was really James. Evaluating other possible primary sources of history for the era. There are not many non-Christian ones, but it ought to be worthwhile to see if there are signs of a Roman origin in First Century pseudo Jewish works, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Shepherd of Hermas. If there were obvious involvement in cases like that, it would be evidence for an ongoing program of that sort. Another interesting idea is that a guy on Youtube suggested a link between the Christian St. Veronica and Herod Berenice from Josephus. In Greek, Berenice is pronounced ver-e-NEE-kay. This may point out more closely who is being allegorically referred to as friends and relatives of Jesus in the Gospels; as per Atwill. The Mandaean scriptures are interesting, and it is intriguing that John the Baptist is already baptizing early in the First Century; at roughly the time a John the Baptist type of character is doing likewise in the Slavonic Josephus. After Atwill, I am more skeptical of this idea; but it would be worthwhile to see what else can be found to support that time-frame. I also suspect that Marcion's gospels may have been the originals; and I'll reserve some of what I've found on the subject until I can get it up on my site. I have other things to be attending in the snort-term; however. Finally, a very intriguing idea is what Eisenman is claiming in relation to the DSS; in that the James the brother of Jesus in the Bible may have been a Qumran character; and that the prophetic and exegesis texts of Qumran may have actually been the community about which the NT is referring to as Christian; although they were completely Jewish in nature, and were quite unlike the Christians of the scriptures at all. It sounds very plausible, that the passages where the Kittim are attacking Judea are actually the Romans attacking it during the War; and that scholars who date them much earlier on paleographic grounds are being obstinate on these dates for political reasons. I do disagree with him, however, that radiocarbon dates are not relevant to this discussion; but that is not to say that he is wrong.

04-26-2010, 06:05 PM	#14
RogueBibleScholar Junior Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Europe Posts: 35	I am probably being too hard on the Mandaeans above. It fits remarkably well from a sociological point of view for Jesus to have been a member of a caste of priests. They called one level of their priests Nazareans; a caste which didn't have sex or drink. This does much to explain Jesus' "become eunichs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven." This is completely out of step with Judaism and Torah practice; and is pretty extreme for even Roman thought, although they had their eunich slaves and vestal virgins. While it seems unlikely that they embraced Jesus' ideals for their priestly order, and then rejected them; it cannot be ruled out. That is the problem with Mandaeanism. While it fits very well with some of Jesus' more extreme teachings, the antiquity of their practices has not yet been definitively been established; and they are under great duress under the U.S. in Iraq, last I heard. Even if we are never able to prove anything definitive based on, e.g. the Mandaean scriptures, I think there are enough records of the birth of Christianity around for us to come much closer to the truth of how it formed than we are now.

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