aa5874

Questionable and incredible sources cannot be used as historical sources for Jesus. The sources of antiquity that make claims about the historical nature of Jesus must first be corroborated or shown to be credible.

Acts of the Apostles and gLuke have not been found to be credible or historical.

Christian sources may help to confirm that there were characters called Herod, Pilate, Tiberius and others, but on the other hand, external sources do not help to confirm a deified character called Jesus the Messiah or Christ in the 1st century.

IT IS just totally ridiculous and non-sensical to propose that the expected Messiah, the most significant expectation for a Jew, did arrive during the time of Pilate but the Jews never realised it up to the arrival of Simon bar Cocheba, 100 years later.

Toto

How is this "single most important lesson" compatible with the history of the early church contained in Acts? Acts does much more than "paper over" - it contains outright invention. Do you think that the stoning of Stephen is historic?

The diversity of early Christianity that Ehrman and others describe did center around the nature of Jesus, whether he was divine, ethereal, docetic, or more or less human. There is no hint of this in Acts.

Why would such a diverse group be subject to any persecution?

Steven Carr

Josephus didn't write about James in a neutral way.

He claimed the killing of this James so incensed the Jews that it led to the removal of the High Priest and Jesus became the High Priest.

Why did you claim that the group around James was free from interference , if you also claim they were all killed.

Steven Carr

Well, you went bananas and claimed it was ridiculous to think Josephus had heard of the ideas in Matthew's Gospel where Matthew has early Christians worshipping Jesus.

Now you claim Josephus knew about Christians similar to Matthew.

Can you actually get your story straight?

Did early Christians worship Jesus, as the Gospel of Matthew?

Steven Carr

I see.So Josephus is lamenting the destruction of Israel because of crackpots claiming Messianic-like qualities , which crackpottery led to the destruction of all Josephus loved, and which he slams in Antiquities time after time after time.

And yet Josephus has no problems with James, somebody allegedly proclaiming a crucified criminal to be the Messiah.....

Ridiculous.

robto

OK, so you're finally getting around to starting to begin to answer my question. Can I ask where you find Josephus "lamenting the destruction of Israel because of crackpots claiming Messianic-like qualities" in the Antiquities?

neilgodfrey

Are you suggesting that of the many varieties of Christianity floating around in the first century that Josephus was aware of only one of these, and that this particular one preached and practiced beliefs that would not at any point raise the eyebrow of a conservative Pharisee Jew? If not, how do you explain Josephus describing "Christianity" per se in the way he supposedly does?

And this controversy did not really bother Josephus? Or had the controversy very quickly resolved itself with Paul as the loser and long forgotten by the time of Josephus, so that Josephus could describe Christianity as something upright and godly without qualification?

Well, I don't think we have very much to go on to dig deep into a debate over the minim passages, but I do read many times in the scholarly literature that they appeared soon after 70, or probably around 90, and some scholars suggest they were a key background to the Gospel of John.

I would have thought that this sort of scholarly understanding points to a situation of a certain tension between Jews and Christians at least in the years leading up to the time Josephus wrote Antiquities.


No, not at all. Why would I suggest that? Your mind-reading skills need a bit of a tune-up. I'm speaking about how fundamentalists might explain this particular anomaly they seem not to really notice in their view of evidence for Jesus in Josephus. It's called an aside, a digression, something not directly pertinent to the logical flow of the immediate dialogue, but the sort of thing that comes out in a natural conversation. It is there because it nonetheless addresses another aspect of the point behind all this -- without bothering to go so far as to start a new thread.

Neil

robto

Bump for Steven to back up his claim with references. I have already provided two places where, according to your hypothesis, Josephus should have said something negative about someone but didn't. Surely, if he does what you say "time after time", you can point me to one or two places where he does so?

robto

I'm suggesting that Judaism was broad enough to include those who came to be called "Christians". This we know for a fact: Paul is one example of a Jew who was a Jesus-follower but still considered himself a Jew. I am not speculating on what would or wouldn't raise Josephus's eyebrows - Steven is the one who made the claim about what would raise them, and I'm still waiting for him to back up that claim. As I've said, the differences between Sadducees (or Essenes) and Pharisees were perhaps as great as those between early Christians and Pharisees, yet Jos describes them (IMO) rather neutrally.

I don't know if it did or didn't. If you have an opinion on the matter, please state it and state why you think so.
Um, no, I'm not suggesting that.

The truth is we know very little about when and how and where the split took place. It seems likely that it took place at different times in different places. The idea that there was a grand decision made at Jamnia in about 90 AD that immediately took effect across the whole of Judaism is, as I understand, no longer a commonly held view.


OK, digression - got it. Sorry I misunderstood.

show_no_mercy

All throughout "War of the Jews" Josephus condemns all of the messiah wannabes being led astray by falsely interpreting their scriptures. This is the entire reason why Josephus wrote "War". He then (at 6.5.4) says that they were all wrong about their scriptures and who the messiah was supposed to be - it was really Vespasian, who was declared ruler of the world on Jewish soil.