andrewcriddle

I suspect this should be G. Cassius Chrestos/Chrestus See for example
http://www.iznik.bel.tr/bld-gov/eng/elefkapi.htm

(The PDF definitely reads Christos but I suspect it is a proof-reading error)

Andrew Criddle

thentian

Oh yes, and I also think it is the same Chrestos I found yesterday. The book I referred to turns out to be a paper after all, so there is a little more about him here:

http://www.pontos.dk/publications/bo...olitical-class

There is even a picture of his sarcophagus and another of a gate where his name is inscribed. I can´t make out the inscription from that picture, though, otherwise we could maybe figure out what would be the best translation; Chrestos, Chrestus, or whatever!

While I was googling around in old Bithynia I discovered another interesting "Christ": Socrates Chrestus! And get this; not only was his name Chrestus, he may even have been anointed! He lived in the first century BC, though:

"The king of Pontus wanted to install Philopator's brother Socrates Chrestus in Bithynia, which was unacceptable to Rome: the Romans feared that Mithridates, whose empire consisted now of all countries surrounding the Black Sea, would become too powerful if a puppet would be king in Bithynia."

That was from here:

http://www.livius.org/mi-mn/mithridates/mithridates.htm

However, googling his name gives many other hits. One of them was Appian:

http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/...idatic_02.html

That first link also mentions Mithridates VI´s brother whose name was Mithridates Chrestus near the top.

Toto

ibid. is a Latin abbreviation meaning "in the same place" or usually "the same reference book as the one preceding this footnote."

IK I think refers to Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien, a multivolume German series.

stonewall1012

thentian also wrote: "Are someone still looking for ordinary people named Christ in the first century? The topic seems to split off in all directions so it's a bit hard to know if someone is still interested in that. (I thought it would be cool to have a long list of ordinary people called Christ to taunt the xians with!"

Forgive me if I presupposed you had a motive for trying to "create a database" with the intent of "clearning up mistaken claims" when you posted your intent so clearly.

As to your reference. It's difficult to tell what IK 9. 25-29 might mean, I believe in Terabian it is referencing a work fully cited earlier on. You could probably find it in the first couple of chapters fully cited.

I would tend to agree with Toto that it's probably a volumed reference.

thentian

Thanks!

I was of course joking when I wrote that about taunting xians.

One of the reasons that I like this site is that there are several members here who are doing philosophy and historical research in a professional and scholarly manner, which of course includes not taking things out of context. I enjoy reading the topics where they are debating this or that theory, though I don't feel I'm qualified to participate in them myself. (Luckily, there are others around who are more on my own level to have slugging matches with! )

Following Toto's advice, I found this site, which seems to be a kind of reference-place for reference works! After studying that, I think the one we would need to get the full story about Gaius Cassius Crestus is this one:

Şahin, Sencer. Katalog der antiken Inschriften des Museums von Iznik (Nikaia). 2 vols. in 3 parts. «Inschriften griechischer Städte aus Kleinasien», 9 and 10,1-2. Bonn 1979, 1981-1982.

I won't go to the length of buying it, but I'll check if it is in the main library here in Oslo.

(I was unable to find an on-line database with this info.)

Cheers!

thentian

They don't have that reference work at 'Deichmanske' Library here in Oslo, so it looks like it is going to be hard for me to make what I would consider a good database entry for Gaius Cassius Chrestus. It should at least contain a good estimate of when he was born and died, IMO!

I keep running into the same problem with other "christs". It is not difficult to find them, but either there is no refence to where the writer got his information, or you get a refence to a scholarly work that doesn't exist online. So I could make a lot of db entries of dubious worth, but it would be very difficult to make even a few good ones. :frown:

So I don't think a "database of real crists" is going to be very good. It is probably a better idea to make individual entries in Wikipedia once you have enough info about each of them. I may try to create one or two such entries, but I won't be working very hard on it.

Cheers!

DLH

The Greek Khristos (Christ) and the Hebrew Mashiach (Messiah) both mean "Annointed one." Moses, Aaron, and David were all called Messiahs. (Leviticus 4:3 / 8:12 / 2 Samuel 22:51) The Hebrew word comes from the root masach "smear" and so "annoint."

Saul and Solomon were also called messiah, as were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (1 Samuel 2:10, 35 / 12:3, 5 / 24:6, 10 / 2 Samuel 1:14, 16 / 2 Chronicles 6:42 / Lamentations 4:20 / 1 Chronicles 16:16, 22, ) Cyrus, the Persian King was called messiah. (Isaiah 45:1)

Josephus mentions there being many false messiahs in the first century before the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. (The Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. X, p. 251) In 132 C.E. there was the pominent Bar Kokhba (Bar Koziba), then Moses of Crete (supposedly a decendant from David, though of course, the records were destroyed in the aforementined destruction of the temple and couldn't be prooved.)

The Jewish Encyclopedia Vol. X, pp. 252-255. lists 28 false messiahs from 132 C.E. to 1744 C.E.

DLH

You are sort of hung up on this in a Catholic sort of way aren't you?

Jesus was Mary's Firstborn. Joseph was his adoptive father. He had brothers and sisters younger than him. Born after him. (Luke 2:7 / Matthew 13:55 / Mark 6:3)

The first century Jewish historian Josephus referred to the stoning of "James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ." (The Jewish Antiquities, Josephus, Book XX, sec. 200) A direct and very favorable reference to Jesus, found in Book XVIII, sections 63, 64, has been challenged by some who claim that it must have been either added later or embellished by Christians, but it is acknowledged that the vocabulary and the style are basically those of Josephus, and the passage is found in all available manuscripts.

Tacitus wrote: "Christus [Latin for "Christ"], from whom the name [Christian] had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus." - (The Complete Works of Tacitus (New York, 1942), "The Annals," Book 15, par. 44.

The New Encyclopædia Britannica - "These independent accounts prove that in ancient times even the opponents of Christianity never doubted the historicity of Jesus, which was disputed for the first time and on inadequate grounds by several authors at the end of the 18th, during the 19th, and at the beginning of the 20th centuries." - (1976), Macropædia, Vol. 10, p. 145.

Toto

Hi DLH - welcome to BCH, but you are a little late to the game here. Both Josephus references have been challenged, and there is an ongoing thread on Tacitus.

We are not interested in summary dismissals of the challenges to this historicity of Jesus, only in the factual basis of the claim.

DLH

Hello Toto, and thanks for the welcome. I was addressing aa5874. What I do is go down the list and respond to posts that are of interest to me. When I get down to the others you mentioned I will judge if they interest me. Is there a problem with that?

Also, that was my second post if I am not mistaken, so I assume that later I will discover that the two Josephus references you mention are the ones having to do with the subject of the historicity of Jesus, rather than the two first century messiahs I named and gave two more references to Josephus to that effect that were actually having to do with the original topic?