Steven Carr

'Almost immediately' means more than a century later.

And Chaucer has the sheer GALL to accuse other people of dishonesty.

And, of course, Origen never quotes that sentence.

Here is what Origen writes 'For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless— being, although against his will, not far from the truth— that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),— the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.'

Let me see.

Where is the reference to Antiquities 20 in there, or any claim that Ant. 20 contained a reference to James?

And where does Josephus say 'these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just....'?

And where does Josephus say 'although he was a man most distinguished for his justice.'?


Chaucer should stop calling people dishonest when he is caught faking references which do not exist.

Steven Carr

Origen in commentary on Matthew says
'And to so great a reputation among the people for righteousness did this James rise, that Flavius Josephus, who wrote the "Antiquities of the Jews" in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ.'

This does not actually place a reference to James in Book 20. It just says that Ant. was in 20 books.

And it clearly does not reflect what Josephus actually wrote, so can't be quoted to support any text of Josephus.

Chaucer

Why is it even necessary to assume a back reference? Josephus could just as easily have made it clear which Jesus is being referred to by citing the term most associated with his name and nothing more. Since James is incidental here, then so is Jesus, and no elaborate background or back reference is needed for Jesus either.

No, he upset the authorities by rushing a condemnation process that should have waited until all the proper officials were at the scene. The one condemned could just as well have been the man in the moon. What so upset those who complained was the flouting of the authority of those additional officials who should have been in on all the decision-making.

Again, the nature of the ones condemned could not have been more unimportant to them.

I will mention here one additional aspect that did strike me forcibly on rereading the original Josephus passage just now: Rather than viewing Josephus's reference toward the end of the paragraph to a Jesus, son of Damneus, in the way you do, I was newly struck by the fact that "son of Damneus" is written here rather than earlier when James is first mentioned. The implication seems clear that this latter Jesus "son of Damneus" is being introduced at the end for the first time here, and that consequently the Jesus referenced alongside James has to be some other Jesus altogether.

In fact, it's even plausible that Josephus specifies the latter Jesus as "son of Damneus" at the end partly because an altogether different Jesus has indeed been referenced earlier in the paragraph and Josephus wants to make it clear that the latter Jesus is different from the one referenced earlier -- the one called the Christ.

You can't have it both ways. On the one hand, we're evidently to suppose that manipulative Christians Trojan-horsed into a secular narrative's account of one James a "bogus" James whose brother was Jesus, called Christ. But on the other, manipulative Christians wanted all mention of this "bogus" James removed from Luke/Acts. That doesn't compute.

Personally, a consensus (among several competing ones) recently emerging from certain researchers at the Jesus Seminar seems more plausible: So much of Jesus's interaction with his family in Mark is latent cause for embarrassment, both on account of his behavior having suggested insanity to them, and on account of the growing emphasis on his "divine parentage" having necessitated playing down any siblings at all. That is one reason, along with Mark's earlier dating, that makes me distrust Luke/Acts' lack of mention of Jesus' brother James.

Chaucer

bacht

The reason that people still argue about Josephus is because there's nothing else to look at. Whether or not the two famous passages (about Jesus and James) were interpolated or edited or whatever, the fact remains that outside of Josephus there's almost no "proof" that Christians existed at all until the 4th C.

Steven Carr

You are jumping wildly to conclusions here.

Introducing James as the brother of Jesus, and then later saying who this Jesus is is perfectly possible.

That would begin to make sense if there was only ever one monolithic group of Christians with just one viewpoint.

What? The Epistle of James and the Epistle of Jude ignore the fact that there was supposed to have been a James the brother of Jesus for some unknown reason.

And Luke/Acts whitewashes the leader of the church's own family connection out of history? How would he have got away with that, if James really had been the brother of Jesus?

By not talking about the 800-pound gorilla in the room, Luke/Acts hoped nobody would realise that this James had been a brother of Jesus?

mountainman

There are very good reasons to wonder about Eusebius.
Eusebius was probably a mercenary propagandist author
in the employ of Constantine, who is arguably portrayable
as a fascist because he selected not just to support the
"new and strange" christian cult, but to utterly destroy
and prohibit all other traditional religious cults c.324 CE,
prior to the ratifications of this initiative at Nicaea.

Wiploc

I just want to juxtapose these two paragraphs:

Toto

Why those 2? I thought about removing them as defamatory.

Chaucer seems to have an agenda, so he assumes that every one else does too.

judge

Chaucer, you Sir, are an Heretic!

Chaucer

Since the second paragraph has now caused offense for more than one contributor, it is evident that it was way over the top. It's time for me to apologize for effectively tarring and feathering every Jesus mythicist in that paragraph, and so I do apologize unreservedly. It's very evident that I did not come off as attacking the methods and the way they could be abused. Animus against individuals instead was the impression. And that was unfortunate, to say the least. Hence my apology.

As for the first paragraph, that is a quote from an atheist, Tim O’Neill. In other words, the statement comes from a third party and is not mine. Coming from a third party, it strongly reflects a point of view that I have encountered frequently, both off-line and on-line, among many long-time atheist friends of my own family. O'Neill is simply expressing what many I know and know well feel. So I will not apologize for excerpting someone else's point of view as an example of a line of thinking that is very much out there. That's like shooting the messenger. I decline to apologize for someone else's words.

Respectfully,

Chaucer