Amaleq13

I agree and that's one reason why I doubt the unique use of "Christ" in this reference can be reliably attributed to Josephus who never uses it anywhere else.

NOGO

Yuri,
So how could these followers of a mythical Saviour be harmful to the Roman state?

Nogo
The same that the followers of a dead Saviour could be harmful to the Roman state. Any ideology can be seen as harmful.

Yuri
Poor logic, Toto.
Because it was the _Catholic_ Christianity that ended up subverting the ideological basis of the Roman Empire! It was certainly not the followers of a mythical Saviour that did this, as far as we know...

Nogo
I think that Toto is correct. Paul spent all his time trying to get more converts. The ideology never rests untill everybody is a member. Christianity eventually took all of Europe and even today Christians are in Japan and India and elsewhere trying to convert people. It's like a plague. It divided families and caused all sorts of problems for normal people (ie non-Christians)


Yuri
I'd prefer it that the mythicists, themselves, supplied for us here the details of their own reconstructions. That's what this thread is all about.

Nogo:
This thread is about the idea that only an HJ could have had followers that accepted martyrdom. This premise is totally false.
The martyrdom of Jesus and other early Christians were retrofitted in Christian history in order to encourage martyrdom among Christians.
In other words if so and so was martyred ... well it's ok because Jesus himself was martyred.
To make this thread relevant you need to show what historical inconsistencies there are if early Christians believed in an MJ instead of an HJ.

Yuri
It's for the mythicists' own benefit for them to be on the same page. But unfortunately (for them) they aren't.

Nogo
Christians themselves are all over the map why then should anybody expect others to all agree.

Paul believed that Jesus created the universe, that he became the son of God on his reentry into heaven and that eventually he will come and put all of God's enemies under his feet etc. None of these have anything to do with the
HJ. He also tells us that Jesus was revealed to him through scriptures. So why do you think that the HJ make such a big difference to Paul.

One think is certain is that today the HJ makes a big difference and that without him Christianity falls apart.

Steven Avery

This is of course assuming the skeptic/mythicist conclusions on the Testimonium, while most modern scholarship is far more diverse and nuanced in its conclusions. However, my primary point was "James the brother of Jesus" rather than "James the Just".

Steven Avery

Even from the skeptic perspective, the James passage, with
"who was called Christ"
is especially strong from a scholarship/logic/textual sense, with its equivocation being a strong point in favor, along of course with the lack of variances in any manuscripts. All making the "uniqueness" of the word Christ a point of consistency, as a special title, offerred with distance.

Granted, as we know, the true mythicists could never accept this, since then, if honest, they would have to close up shop and withdraw their books.

Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

Amaleq13

That the Testimonium, as it stands, is the result of Christian tampering is not a conclusion exclusive "skeptics" or "mythicists" but of all individuals who realize Josephus was not a Christian. This includes a substantial number of Christian scholars. That some feel free to go beyond the evidence and speculate about a hypothetical original text does not make such an original any more likely to have existed nor any particular "reconstruction" more credible than no original passage at all.

Feel free to start a thread on the subject but please refrain from derailing this thread into a Josephus discussion. If you do decide to start a new thread, please try to stick to the facts and avoid comments on the alleged motivations, honesty, and or biases of those with whom you disagree. It adds nothing to a rational discussion and only serves to create the appearance that your argument is not sufficient on its own.

Steven Avery

Amaleq...Simply pointing out "the default method of referring to James would be the actual words of Josephus, rather than words he doesn't use." -- and that he calls James the brother of Jeuss -- seems to make folks here very uneasy and beliigerant.. rather interesting..

As for discussing biases, my comments always try to be clear .. bias is not a one-way street, and when a skeptic or infidel is putting a baggageful of presumption in their argumentation, they should be willing to examine same, and discuss it, just as you would expect from believers. The fact that they are often unable to do so logically, and insist upon their presumptions of forgery, fakery and fraud in the scripture text, that inability appears to be endemic. There may be some exceptions, however.

Shalom,
Praxeus
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/

John A. Broussard

Agreed.

However, when someone presents quoted material to prove anything, it's up to that person to provide proof of authenticity--especially when there already exists doubts about the genuineness of the material quoted.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Wrong. I didn't say anything like this...

And, yet, Christians themselves agree completely as to the chronology of the earliest martyrs...

What this thread is really all about is to invite the mythicists to state their views about the early martyrs. Who were they, and why did they decide to sacrifice their lives?

So if the Mythical Jesus really preceded the HJ, how exactly did that transformation manage to take place?

Yours,

Yuri.

Yuri Kuchinsky

If you're trying to claim that there were no Christian martyrs, you should start your own thread on this... see how many supporters you get.

But, myself, I just see this as a meaningless distraction, sorry...

So here I'm being insulted by a moderator of this board!

Yes, I suppose this should fill me with confidence that the mythicist side is really secure in their views...

Yuri.

John A. Broussard

I would guess it's for the same reasons as current Iraqi martyrs. Some die in order to get in early on those 70 virgins, some are out of work and don't have much else to do, some prefer death to Abu Ghraib, some hate the fact that Americans are occupying their country, some hate collaborators even more, some just get a kick out of that sort of thing.

All in all, it's like asking why people do anything. The answer--"Mixed motives."