Mythra

It seems that, from what I've read of the Jesus Seminar, this was their aim. To use their learning and skills to try and discern what, if any, historical bits of truth there were in the gospel stories. And it seems that I've also read that Robert M. Price ( a member of the Jesus Seminar) takes things down the road a little further than the average Jesus Seminar scholar.

I've read Earl Doherty's book. A couple of times. So, I'm somewhat familiar with the myth position that he presents. And originally, it made good sense to me and seemed to explain the difficulties that the HJ position can't explain.

But lately, I've starting wondering if the real truth doesn't lie somewhere in the middle.

Michael

Toto

I think this is the basic outline of the liberal Christian position, dating back to Albert Schweitzer - that there was a historical Jesus, who must have had an effect on his followers to get the religion started, but that nothing much can be known about him. I'm not sure how he got from that proposition to devoting his life to missionary medical work, but I haven't read him extensively.

You might call this the Zorba the Greek model. There was a real person, Alexis Zorbas, who was a friend of Nikos Kazantzakis. We know with reasonable certainty that he was real, because Kazantzakis wrote about him in his autobiography (or via: amazon.co.uk). Kazantzakis considered Zorba an authentic person, and talked about setting up a church of St. Zorba. I don't think anything came of this, but there were a number of sermons preached in Unitarian Churches about Zorba in the 60s, and there might as well have been a church of St. Zorba in certain circles.

When K. needed to make money, he wrote novels based on his personal experience. All of the events in the novel Zorba the Greek (or via: amazon.co.uk) are fictional, but the personality of Zorba is real.

spin

When you decontextualize you can then then make any sort o comment.

Changing meanings that don't suit you seems obvious.

This is a philological issue. Judea has a simple reference. To make the sort of special plea that you are doing here, you at least need to show that it can be used the way you want it.

Redefinition without even the philological effort of showing that a term can be so defined is a waste of time.

You seem to have little interest in history. As long as they are not like us, we gotta kill 'em. How do you know they are not like us? Everyone can tell you!

Not everyone during the inquisition had the pleasure of meeting the grand inquisitor, but the certainly knew who he was. Doh!

Yeah, and convert "us" into "others" to fit a priori commitments.

No it was banter with a psycho logist.

Of course. It makes sense to change the text because you don't like it.

History is filled with analogous situations. Lots of people today feel persecuted by George Bush Junior without having met the guy. How many Chileans ever me Pinochet? Spaniards Franco? Europeans Hitler? There, see wat you made me do.


spin

spin

You're repeating things that have been dealt with.

You should read the rest of the thread.

(Assumption. He at times merely gives the equivalent of "a certain [name]".)

(To which you get through faulty assumption.)

Or that your hat is not a good conduit for communication.

Does not follow.

Over-literal. He's already written the thing once. He refers back to it twice, taking what he needs, like when he memntions Titus's destruction of Jerusalem: hmm, what did I say before.

Google, say, "marginal note" scribe. And I did mention the problems of reconstructing the original state of a doctored text in the thread you've referred back to.

The only clumsiness I see is that you show no interest in ancient texts, so you generate stuff that is unrelated to the task at hand.


spin

jjramsey

I'm repeating, certainly, but the only way you've dealt with it is to presume the scribe is being more than just a scribe and is going out of his way to find where in Josephus's work that James is mentioned.

Fair point. You clearly went with the unlikely scenario of Josephus identifying a man solely by a very common Jewish name.

But not that often, IIRC, and here he'd have a motive for giving a further identifier since just calling him "James" would still leave him practically anonymous, with the reader left to wonder, "James who?"

Non-responsive.

You were the one who said "copied and pasted." Furthermore, what is weird is that in your scenario, he consistently repeats the phrasing "brother of Jesus called Christ," but is far freer in his phrasing otherwise. Why do we not see him be as free in that phrase, for example, by reverting back to the usual stock phrase "brother of the Lord," or simply refer to James as "James the Just," with no further qualification? Funny that he is so attached to that particular phrasing--but only when alluding to Josephus.

In other words, saying that Origen "copied and pasted" only provides a very partial answer that raises more questions.

Non-responsive, except for the unwarranted implication that I don't know what a marginal note is.

spin

You need to bring something to reheat an old debate.

ETA: And obviously you didn't look at the google results for

"marginal note" scribe


spin

jjramsey

Just for yucks, I did, just to see if I'd see anything unexpected. Nope.

spin

The darkness might go away if you separate the eyelids.


spin

Malachi151

I go into this at length in my JM article:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...history.htm#10

You have to scroll down to the part on Josephus.

At any rate, the main point is that we can see that in Origen's writings where he talks about Josephus and James, he actually quotes from Hegesippus, not Josephus, and we also know that Hegesippus was a name that was commonly mixed up with Josephus, as the spelling was very similar. This name mix up, among a different Hegesippus with Josephus, occurred more than once.

Origen states:

The 18th book is also the book that supposedly has to Testimonium Flavianum in it, so it is basically certain from this that the TF didn't exist when Origen read it or was made aware of it.

Secondly, when he talks about James, the term "James the Just" never appears in the writings of Josephus, and nothing about James that Origen says here is in the writings of Josephus, not even in the passage in question.

Instead, we find this:

This appears to be what Origen was referring to, not any writing from Josephus.

The passage in question from Josephus says this:

Again, I'm keeping this brief, you have to contend with these obvious facts:

1) The supposed citation of this passage by Origen doesn't match the Josephus passage, instead it matches a passage from Hegesippus.
2) The names Hegesippus and Josephus are known to have been confused by people on multiple occasions.
3) The passage in question contains mention of "another" Jesus.

This has all of the ingredients for an innocent confusion and mix-up by a scribe.

Add to that the oddity that James would be identified by association to Jesus, when supposedly James was well known on his own as "James the Just". It seems more likely that if Josephus were talking about this James that he would have called him James the Just, not the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, who was named James.

As usual, the solidity of the pro-historicity claims melt under the light.

Amaleq13

Repetition of a claim doesn't constitute substantiation. Try explaining what meanings have been changed instead of simply asserting it. Or are you just blowing smoke again?

It can mean either a specific region in Palestine or all of Palestine. Your unsubstantiated assertions notwithstanding, we've seen that the latter cannot be what was intended.

It is entirely disingenuous for you to pretend to be ignorant of the meanings available to the word.

You've yet to mention any that supports the notion. Only red herrings about Communist persecution. When I tried to make your fish actually analogous, you dropped it like a hot potato. The fact is you simply cannot make the concept sound credible so all you can do is puff hot air.

Do you think this lends credibility to the notion? It doesn't. Those who only knew him by reputation did so because he directly persecuted others. Just as I've argued is what Paul describes.

Except I have none and you know it. I used to hold the position you do but then I actually read the entire texts after some folks around here made some persuasive arguments and, as a result, changed my position. Got any more smoke? That one just sputtered and went out.

You are confusing reasoning from the text with changing the text. I clearly haven't done the latter and you've offered nothing to suggest otherwise. Again.

Your examples don't appear to actually help you.

The folks who were not persecuted in person by Bush, Pinochet, Franco, and Hitler but only knew them by reputation would be our "assemblies of Judea" and the reputation they know is from the direct persecution of others. Just like I'm saying is what Paul describes.

You're doing a great job supporting my position but I think you are supposed to support your own. :angel: